Online Safety Act 2023

27 Safety duties about illegal content

(1) This section sets out the duties about illegal content which apply in relation to regulated search services (as indicated by the headings).

All services

(2) A duty, in relation to a service, to take or use proportionate measures relating to the design or operation of the service to effectively mitigate and manage the risks of harm to individuals, as identified in the most recent illegal content risk assessment of the service (see section 26(5)(c)).

(3) A duty to operate a service using proportionate systems and processes designed to minimise the risk of individuals encountering search content of the following kinds—

(a) priority illegal content;

(b) other illegal content that the provider knows about (having been alerted to it by another person or become aware of it in any other way).

(4) The duties set out in subsections (2) and (3) apply across all areas of a service, including the way the search engine is designed, operated and used as well as search content of the service, and (among other things) require the provider of a service to take or use measures in the following areas, if it is proportionate to do so—

(a) regulatory compliance and risk management arrangements,

(b) design of functionalities, algorithms and other features relating to the search engine,

(c) functionalities allowing users to control the content they encounter in search results,

(d) content prioritisation,

(e) user support measures, and

(f) staff policies and practices.

(5) A duty to include provisions in a publicly available statement specifying how individuals are to be protected from search content that is illegal content.

(6) A duty to apply the provisions of the statement referred to in subsection (5) consistently.

(7) A duty to include provisions in a publicly available statement giving information about any proactive technology used by a service for the purpose of compliance with a duty set out in subsection (2) or (3) (including the kind of technology, when it is used, and how it works).

(8) A duty to ensure that the provisions of the publicly available statement referred to in subsections (5) and (7) are clear and accessible.

Additional duty for Category 2A services

(9) A duty to summarise in a publicly available statement the findings of the most recent illegal content risk assessment of a service (including as to levels of risk and as to nature, and severity, of potential harm to individuals).

Interpretation

(10) In determining what is proportionate for the purposes of this section, the following factors, in particular, are relevant—

(a) all the findings of the most recent illegal content risk assessment (including as to levels of risk and as to nature, and severity, of potential harm to individuals), and

(b) the size and capacity of the provider of a service.

(11) In this section “illegal content risk assessment” has the meaning given by section 26.

(12) See also, in relation to duties set out in this section, section 33 (duties about freedom of expression and privacy).