UK Tech Secretary Lists Age Verification Among OSA Priorities

LONDON — Peter Kyle, the U.K.’s Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, on Wednesday made public a draft version of his priorities for implementing the Online Safety Act (OSA), including age verification.

The new Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP) highlights, as one key goal, “Ensuring companies are effectively deploying age assurance technology to protect children from harm online.”

Under that heading, the SSP further specifies: “Services should take advantage of the technologies that are already available to identify child users and ensure that they cannot access harmful content on their services. Age assurance should be deployed consistently, effectively, and fairly to users from all backgrounds and age ranges.”

The SSP will guide U.K. online safety regulator Ofcom in overseeing enforcement of the OSA, which goes into effect in spring 2025. Ofcom will then report back on the specific actions it takes to implement those priorities.

Prior to that, according to a government press release, the priorities “will be finalised with the input of online safety experts and campaigners” before being submitted to Parliament for approval. The release did not specify which safety experts and campaigners would be included.

Previously, Ofcom consulted with adult industry stakeholders during the process of drafting regulations under the OSA. XBIZ has reached out to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to determine whether adult industry stakeholders will be invited to provide further input and feedback alongside the aforementioned “safety experts and campaigners.” This report will be updated as more information becomes available.