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Ofcom: protection of children duties under the Online Safety Act

Guidance details risk assessment and record-keeping duties under chunk 1, requiring regulated providers to deploy highly effective age assurance under children s safety duties.

Verified at publication, 2026-11-12 11:43 UTC

8 provisions in 6 parts · official text ↗

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impact by vertical

Summary

What this law does

Sets out guidance for providers of regulated user-to-user and search services to conduct children's access and risk assessments, keep written records, and implement proportionate safety measures including highly effective age assurance.

Why it matters to Signicat and its customers

No Signicat-specific relevance narrative is stored for this instrument; the stored applicability is shown below.

Who is bound: All providers of user-to-user and search services in scope of the Act; regulated online service providers; provider of a user-to user service that is likely to be accessed by children; provider of a search service that is likely to be accessed by children; providers of user-to-user services; providers of search services · Regulators: Ofcom

Media Entertainment
Regulated user-to-user and search services must implement child risk assessments and highly effective age assurance measures.

Key obligations each linked to the provision it comes from

Services must implement proportionate safety measures based on service type, size, functionality, and risk assessments categorising content risk into negligible, low, medium, or high. Where the principal purpose of a user-to-user service is hosting or disseminating primary priority content (such as pornography) or priority content (such as violent content), providers will need to use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing the entire service. Other providers may need to use highly effective age assurance to target safety measures to protect children from identified harmful content.
age_assurance.estimationage_assurance.document_or_eid_based

Part summaries

0 of 0 parts have a verified summary.

L1 unavailable for current verification: the overall summary needs every part verified. Provisions and the verified summaries remain readable.

Verification findings (15)

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 main

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#chunk-1

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 our-resources-to-help-you-comply-with-the-protection-of-children-rules

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#our-resources-to-help-you-comply-with-the-protection-of-children-rules

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 children-s-risk-assessment-duties

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#children-s-risk-assessment-duties

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 review-your-children-s-risk-assessment

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#review-your-children-s-risk-assessment

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#review-your-children-s-risk-assessment-additional-steps-for-category-1-and-2a-services

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 children-s-safety-duties

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#children-s-safety-duties

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#children-s-safety-duties-implementing-safety-measures

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 further-steps-you-may-need-to-take-to-comply

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/protection-of-children-duties#further-steps-you-may-need-to-take-to-comply

Instrument tier unavailable

Change history as published

No captured publisher history.

Pending effects amendments not yet applied to this text

No captured pending effects.

Full TOC · table of contents Expand all parts

6 parts · 8 provisions. Open a provision for its text and, where available, its one-line summary.

· 1 provisions
chunk 1
Our resources to help you comply with the protection of children rules · 1 provisions
Our resources to help you comply with the protection of children rules
Children's risk assessment duties · 1 provisions
Children's risk assessment duties
Review your children’s risk assessment · 2 provisions
Review your children’s risk assessment
Additional steps for Category 1 and 2A services
Children's safety duties · 2 provisions
Children's safety duties
[Implementing safety measures]
Further steps you may need to take to comply · 1 provisions
Further steps you may need to take to comply

Impact profile

Transportation
0
Banking finance
0
Public sector health
0
Energy, utilities & telco
0
Insurance pensions
0
Services
0
Media entertainment
3
Manufacturing construction
0
Commerce
1

Dimensions

Mechanism strength
3
Signicat obligation
0
Urgency
Pending

Penalties

not supplied

Definitions

No captured definitions.

References

No captured related instruments.