Online Safety Act

Introduction
Welcome to your Tes course Online Safety Act.

The course will give an overview of what the Online Safety Act covers and how children and young people
are protected from potential harms on the internet and social media platforms.

The Online Safety Act aims to protect both children and adults from online harm, however in this course we
will focus on how it protects children and young people.

On completion of this course, you will:

• understand what the Online Safety Act aims to do
• consider the impact social media currently has on children
• understand how the Online Safety Act protects children
• consider how the Act influences a whole school approach to online safety.

What is the Online Safety Act?

The Act makes social media companies legally responsible for keeping their users safe on their platforms.
It enforces a range of practices to ensure this responsibility is upheld.

Originally called the Online Harms Act, it has roots in the Internet Safety Strategy green paper (2017) and
the Online Harms white paper (2019). The consultation and subsequent white paper covered many topics
on internet safety which the Online Safety Act now addresses. The purpose of both papers was to
investigate how Britain could become ‘the safest place in the world to be online.’

The Online Safety Act aims to fulfil this.

The Act was first published in draft in May 2021 and first introduced to the House of Lords on 18th January
2023. It underwent several readings and amendments and received Royal Assent on 26th October 2023.

The Online Safety Act is now in enforcement mode, with Ofcom actively monitoring compliance, focusing
on illegal harms and child safety, though the regulatory framework continues to evolve, with further
measures expected over 2025 and early 2026.

Broadly, the Act covers how:

• social media companies must protect children, including:
o preventing children from accessing illegal or harmful content
o preventing underage children from using social media platforms.
• social media companies must protect adults
• social media companies will prevent repeat offenders from using their platforms
• Ofcom, as the regulator in charge, enforce the Act, and is responsible for checking that social media
companies are abiding by the law
• Ofcom can take action against international social media companies that are accessible to UK users
if the law is not followed.

Whilst Tes Global Ltd have made every effort to ensure that the courses and their content have been devised and written by leading experts who have ensured that they reflect best practice in all
aspects, Tes Global Ltd exclude their liability of the consequences of any errors, omission or incorrect statements to the fullest extent permitted by law and Tes Global Ltd make no warranty or
representation as to the accuracy, completeness or fitness for purpose of any statements or other content in the course.

No part of this material may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system
without permission in writing by Tes Global Ltd.
Ofcom will be working to ensure that the social media providers have the systems in place to protect their
users and that these systems are working. They will be concerned with any case of systemic failure on the
part of the provider, rather than any individual case.

Prevalence of potential harm online

7% of 9-16s have experienced online harm, for many these experiences being more upsetting or
frightening than previous years. Internet Matters Children’s wellbeing in a digital world 2025 report.

The NSPCC reported in November 2024, that online grooming cases against children have increased by
89% in six years, with most cases taking place against girls, and primary school children are also being
targeted by offenders.

In 2024 CyberTipline, run by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US
received 20.5 million reports of suspected child exploitation, and also noted an increase in online grooming.

Understanding pathways to online violent content among children found that “all the children in their
research (8-17s) had come across violent content online, mostly via social media, video-sharing and
messaging sites and apps”, and “for many this was before they had reached the minimum age requirement
for these services”. 2024 Ofcom.

ONS data, 2024, Bullying and online experiences among children in England and Wales, 19% of 10–15-
year-olds have experienced an online bullying behaviour in the last year.

Ofcom’s Online Experience Tracker (OET) found that, when prompted, 10% of 13–17-year-olds said that
they had come across online content promoting self-harm or suicide in the last four weeks – notably higher
than the average of 4% for all age groups combined (13+). It also found that, when prompted, 15% of 13-
17-year-olds said that they had seen ‘content relating to eating disorders’ in the same time period.

Taking responsibility
As social media companies will be legally responsible for children’s safety, they will be required to:
• remove illegal content quickly or have measures in place to prevent it in the first place
• prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content or content that is legal but still has the
potential to cause trauma
• enforce their minimum age restriction (e.g. 13+) if the social media platform has one and take
proportionate steps to prevent children under that age from accessing the service
• carry out risk assessments about the dangers posed to children on their platforms
• create accessible ways for children and their caregivers to report issues, problems, or concerns.

Illegal content
The Act sets out a range of content that is now illegal for any child or young person to view online to protect
them from harm.

Social media companies will be required to remove content that shows:

• child sexual abuse
• controlling or coercive behaviour
• extreme sexual violence
• fraud
• hate crime

Whilst Tes Global Ltd have made every effort to ensure that the courses and their content have been devised and written by leading experts who have ensured that they reflect best practice in all
aspects, Tes Global Ltd exclude their liability of the consequences of any errors, omission or incorrect statements to the fullest extent permitted by law and Tes Global Ltd make no warranty or
representation as to the accuracy, completeness or fitness for purpose of any statements or other content in the course.

No part of this material may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system
without permission in writing by Tes Global Ltd.
 • illegal immigration and people smuggling
• intimate image abuse
• sexual exploitation
• terrorism.

Companies must also remove content that:

• promotes self-harm
• incites violence
• promotes or facilitates suicide
• sells illegal drugs or weapons.

For the first time ever, self-harm content is classified as illegal content.

Harmful content
The Act sets out a range of content which is not illegal but could still cause significant harm to children and
young people if it were to be viewed. The Act requires social media companies to protect children and
young people from this content.

This includes:
1. Primary priority content
• pornographic content
• content that does not meet a criminal threshold but which promotes, encourages or provides
instructions for suicide, self-harm or eating disorders

2. Priority content
• content that depicts or encourages serious violence
• content that encourages dangerous stunts and challenges
• bullying content.
• abusive or hateful content.

Tackling underage users

A further impact of the Act on children and young people is the tightening of controls around age limits on
social media websites and platforms.

Despite there being a minimum age requirement of 13 for using most social media apps, over half of 3-12-
year-olds (55%) were reported as using at least one social media app.

The Act aims to prevent this by requiring all social media platforms to check the age of their users. This is
possible through age assurance technologies.

“The Act requires social media companies to enforce their age limits consistently and protect their
child users.
Services must assess any risks to children from using their platforms and set appropriate age
restrictions, ensuring that child users have age-appropriate experiences and are shielded from
harmful content. Service providers who use measures to prevent access to their service for children
under a certain age must specify in their terms of service, what measures are being used to enforce
this age limit and enforce this consistently.”

Social media companies must report what technology they are using to do this and evidence their policy
and procedures for checking the age of users.
Whilst Tes Global Ltd have made every effort to ensure that the courses and their content have been devised and written by leading experts who have ensured that they reflect best practice in all
aspects, Tes Global Ltd exclude their liability of the consequences of any errors, omission or incorrect statements to the fullest extent permitted by law and Tes Global Ltd make no warranty or
representation as to the accuracy, completeness or fitness for purpose of any statements or other content in the course.

No part of this material may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system
without permission in writing by Tes Global Ltd.
Whole school approach
Question
How do you think the Online Safety Act will affect your teaching practice and your school more widely?

Schools still have a responsibility to safeguard all children and young people from harm. Whilst the Act will
make social media companies responsible for what content their users see, this does not remove any
accountability or duty for school staff to protect children.

The most effective way to prevent online harm is to adopt a whole school approach to online safety.
Although the Online Safety Act will help, education remains a key mechanism for helping children to
manage risk online.

All students should receive a consistent message throughout their time at school which encourages a safe
environment to talk openly about and act upon potential harms.

Setting a culture and ethos that supports online safety will reassure students that you will take their
concerns seriously and will support them.

Statutory guidance and the Act

The statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education increasingly reflects the importance of schools
keeping children safe online, most recently by ensuring all schools have appropriate filtering and monitoring
systems in place.

The Act will not replace these measures but should instead strengthen the school’s approach. You should
remember it is part of the defence against online harms, not a complete solution.

Remember, taking a whole school approach means online safety is the responsibility of all staff.

You can find more detailed information and practical advice on how to integrate a whole school approach to
online safety in our course Online Safety.

Summary
You have now completed your course Online Safety Act, in which you have learned what the Online
Safety Act is and how its implementation will affect children and young people’s experience of being online.

You have also considered what the implications of the Online Safety Act will have for embedding a whole
school approach to online safety.

There are links to all the legislation and reference materials in the Resources section of this course.

You are now ready to complete the questionnaire. Click Questionnaire to undertake the questions.

When you have completed the questionnaire, there is the opportunity for you to leave feedback on the
course and we would be very grateful if you would take a minute to do so.

Whilst Tes Global Ltd have made every effort to ensure that the courses and their content have been devised and written by leading experts who have ensured that they reflect best practice in all
aspects, Tes Global Ltd exclude their liability of the consequences of any errors, omission or incorrect statements to the fullest extent permitted by law and Tes Global Ltd make no warranty or
representation as to the accuracy, completeness or fitness for purpose of any statements or other content in the course.

No part of this material may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system
without permission in writing by Tes Global Ltd.