- Watchdog also confirms that porn company AVS has now introduced new age checks on all its sites under investigation, after Ofcom fine
Ofcom has today fined a file-sharing service £20,000 under the UK’s Online Safety Act for not responding to legally binding requests for information.
Tackling CSAM on file-sharing services
Earlier this year, new duties came into force requiring tech firms to assess the risk of people in the UK encountering illegal content on their platforms, and to assess how their service could be used to commit or facilitate certain criminal offences. Providers must take appropriate steps to reduce these risks.
When these duties came into effect, we immediately launched enforcement action to assess the safety measures being taken by file-sharing services, which are particularly susceptible to being exploited by offenders to distribute child sexual abuse material (CSAM) at scale. The spread of this material causes devastating harm to victims and remains one of the gravest online safety challenges.
As part of this enforcement work, we sent legally binding information requests to a number of these services regarding the measures they have in place to tackle CSAM, and requiring them to submit a record of their illegal content risk assessments to us.
In response to our enforcement action, some services have now deployed perceptual hash-matching technology – a powerful automated tool that can detect and swiftly remove CSAM before it spreads further, which is one of the core safety measures set out in our illegal harms codes of practice.
Other providers have taken steps to prevent people in the UK from accessing their sites. This has significantly reduced the likelihood that people in the UK will be exposed to illegal content on these services.
Fining providers who do not respond
Gathering accurate information from regulated companies is fundamental to our job of making life safer online for people in the UK. To assess and monitor industry compliance with their safety duties, we routinely issue formal information requests. Firms are required, by law, to respond to all such requests from Ofcom in an accurate, complete and timely way.
One file-sharing service under investigation has not provided the information requested in two statutory information requests, which included a copy of its illegal content risk assessment, and information relating to its qualifying worldwide revenue. As a result, Ofcom has fined this provider £20,000.
We will also impose a daily penalty of £100 per day, starting from tomorrow, for either 60 days or until the company provides us with this information, whichever is sooner.
Enforcement action secures positive outcomes
Ofcom has also today confirmed that AVS Group Ltd – which was recently fined £1 million by the regulator for not having robust age checks in place on 18 adult websites – has now introduced a new age assurance process on all sites that were the subject of our investigation.
We continue to monitor these sites to ensure that such processes are highly effective at preventing children from accessing pornographic content.
Suzanne Cater, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Any company that fails to engage with Ofcom and their duties under the Online Safety Act should expect to face robust enforcement action.
“Porn sites must use highly effective age assurance to protect children. We've shown we'll use our enforcement powers to secure this outcome, and AVS has introduced new age checks after we fined them.”
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