This consultation is part of the third phase of Ofcom’s implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023, which focuses on bringing greater transparency, accountability and user choice to some of the most widely used online services in the UK. These services are known as ‘Category 1 services’.
Category 1 services have additional duties relating to user empowerment, user identity verification, news publisher content, journalistic content, content of democratic importance, terms of service, complaints, and freedom of expression and privacy impact assessments. We are consulting on a draft Code of Practice and guidance documents to help providers comply with these duties.
We are also publishing our register of categorised services, and our proposals for additional duties on the Fraudulent Advertising Code.
To help stakeholders engage with this consultation, we have also published;
This consultation is open until 2 October. We invite feedback from all stakeholders on the proposals set out in the consultation.
You can respond to our consultation through our webform or response form by email to cat1additionalduties@ofcom.org.uk.
For more information on responding to this consultation and a full list of consultation questions, see annexes 2 and 5.
Responding to this consultation
Please submit responses using our consultation webform or consultation response form no later than 5pm 2 October 2026.