The UK’s new Online Safety Act (OSA) requires a number of online service providers to share data on the safety of their services for users at least once a year; this is known as ‘transparency reporting’. The intention is to improve safety practices and enhance users’ understanding of regulated services. 

As part of this, Ofcom, the regulator responsible for implementing the OSA, is now consulting on draft statutory transparency reporting guidance. It is required to produce guidance around transparency reporting in line with the OSA.

Importantly, transparency reporting will not affect all online providers. While certain duties within the OSA apply to all regulated online service providers, there are additional duties that apply only to certain providers. Providers will only have to observe additional duties where Ofcom has assessed their service(s) to have met certain threshold conditions (as will be set out in secondary legislation). There will be specific conditions that apply to user-to-user services and to search services and combined services. Ofcom will designate relevant services as either category 1 or 2B (user-to-user services) or category 2A (search services or combined services). The combination of the additional duties that apply depends on which of these categories the service in question is in.

Accordingly, the transparency reporting requirement only applies to a small range of providers of certain regulated services, specifically those that appear on a public register of “categorised services” prepared by Ofcom.

In summary, the key aspects of Ofcom’s transparency reporting consultation are as follows:

1. Register of Categorised Services. Ofcom will publish a register of categorised service providers that are subject to additional duties in line with the OSA, which includes transparency reporting.
2. Draft Transparency Notices. Once the services subject to transparency reporting have been identified, Ofcom will send draft Transparency Notices to these providers. These will set out the requirements for what providers will need to contain in their Transparency Reports, alongside the deadline for which these will be required to be made public. These requirements will vary from platform to platform, taking account of the type of service, its number of users, the proportion who are children, along with certain other factors in line with paragraph 37 of Schedule 8 of the OSA. These draft Notices also give providers the opportunity to acknowledge and make written representations around information that they will be required to reveal in their Transparency Reports, prior to a Transparency Notice being formally issued. Draft Notices will start being issued in 2025.
3. Transparency Reports. Once a Transparency Notice has been formally issued, Providers will have two to six months to produce their reports. These will set out safety-related information around their online service. As above, the specific content of the reports will depend on the Transparency Notice issued by Ofcom, which cover aspects like service design, user base, regulated content incidence, and safety measures. 
4. Ofcom’s own Transparency Report. Ofcom is also required to produce its own transparency report that draws conclusions based on the substance of the reports produced by providers. It will examine the best and worst practices present in the industry and drive better safety outcomes for users accordingly.

Ofcom has emphasised that its use of its transparency powers will be driven by considering specifically how the public disclosure of information can achieve the following four key outcomes of the OSA:

Stronger safety governance in online services;

1. Design and operation of online services with safety in mind;
2. Greater choice for users so they can have more meaningful control over their online experiences; and
3. Greater transparency regarding the safety measures services use, and the action Ofcom is taking to improve them. 

Ofcom’s consultation makes the following key statement in light of this: 

‘Our ambition is for transparency reporting to be a key source of information for the public, which will shine a light on services’ safety performance and empower the public to make informed choices about the services they use.’

 Implications and Next Steps 

Notably, failure to comply with a transparency notice from Ofcom could result in online service providers facing fines of the higher of £18 million or 10% of a company’s worldwide revenue . 

Ofcom requires that all responses to the transparency guidance consultation are submitted by October 4th 2024. Subject to responses, Ofcom expects to publish its final guidance by early 2025.

If you would like any further information or have queries on the content of this article, please contact Richard Hugo. For a full overview of the Online Safety Act, please find our summary article here. We have published several other articles on the content and obligations in the Online Safety Act, please find further information here and here.

This article was written by Victoria McCarron