Consultation: Guidance - Deceased Child User Duties

Today, we are publishing our draft Guidance to assist providers of relevant services in complying with their duties in relation to the disclosure of information to parents about a deceased child’s use of a service.  

We are consulting on our draft Guidance to help providers of categorised services  understand and comply with the deceased child user duties, set out in section 75 of the Online Safety Act 2023. Our proposals are informed by the experiences of bereaved parents who had sought information from online services about their child’s use of the service and had faced significant barriers in doing so.  

Ofcom is required to publish guidance to assist providers of relevant services in complying with the deceased child user duties and is currently consulting on a draft version. We propose three objectives for this Guidance to help providers of relevant services:

• ensure clarity and transparency for bereaved parents from the earliest point they seek to request information, so parents understand what they can expect throughout the process;
• ensure that bereaved parents are treated with dignity and respect throughout their engagement, and that providers adopt a humane and sensitive approach to these interactions; and
• understand how they can alleviate the burden on bereaved parents by making the process of requesting information as straightforward and supportive as possible.

 Our proposals include how providers of relevant services should clearly and accessibly set out in their terms of service their disclosure policy, the procedure for making a request, what evidence they will require, and detail about what kinds of information would be disclosed and how. We also propose how providers should respond to bereaved parents in a timely manner, offer a function to support bereaved parents in making a request, and operate a simple, transparent complaints procedure. We also set out good practice steps  to ensure bereaved parents are treated with dignity, respect and sensitivity.

We invite views from all stakeholders – bereaved parents, civil society, industry and academics - on our proposals for how services can comply with the duties, and good practice for how services should consider going further.

Separately, today we published our updated Online Safety Information Powers Guidance, reflecting the new Data Preservation Notices provisions duties and updating our guidance on Coroner Information Notices. These provisions enable Ofcom to support the work of coroners undertaking investigations in relation to the death of a child.

Responding to this consultation

Please submit responses using the consultation response form no later than 5pm 23 March 2026.