September 17, 2026, 16:35 GMT | Comment
UK lawmakers stand ready to back embattled watchdog
Ofcom in the face of an intensifying wave of litigation by tech giants, including by changing the Online Safety Act if legal challenges block enforcement, legislator Barbara Keeley told MLex in an interview. The chair of an inquiry into the law, she said companies must do better, and her committee will consider how to balance stronger enforcement with the possible need for legislative changes.
UK lawmakers stand squarely behind embattled watchdog Ofcom in the face of an intensifying wave of litigation by tech giants, the lead of a parliamentary inquiry into the UK's online safety regime told MLex in an exclusive interview.
A legislator with the governing Labour party, Barbara Keeley chairs the Communications and Digital Committee, which launched the inquiry in the summer. It seeks to examine gaps in the 2023 Online Safety Act, its ongoing implementation by Ofcom, and whether the rulebook has actually made children safer online.
Keeley spoke to MLex after the inquiry's second evidence session this week, where a senior Ofcom official described the watchdog as operating in a "highly litigious environment" (see
here).
A key point for Keeley was the suggestion that lawmakers could change the Online Safety Act if legal challenges to Ofcom’s use of its powers become roadblocks to enforcement.
In giving evidence to the
House of Lords committee on Tuesday, Ofcom's online safety director Oliver Griffiths said four companies were legally challenging Ofcom's categorization of services, and other platforms were questioning its use of information-gathering powers.
MLex later revealed that Meta, X and
TikTok are the companies currently challenging Ofcom's information requests (see
here), and that
Instagram, WhatsApp,
Roblox and
Quora are the services appealing Category 1 designation, the most burdensome in regulatory terms (see
here).
"It isn't really for companies to turn around and say we don't want to give Ofcom this data," Keeley said. "If something is a roadblock to Ofcom, and there is a lot of litigation around it, then Parliament can change the situation. We can actually do whatever we need to do [to allow Ofcom] to enforce it," Keeley said.
"As parliamentarians, as politicians, we need to be saying to Ofcom, 'look, get on with doing this, get on with charging the fees, go into the business disruption measures, do the job.' We're actually saying to them: 'we're behind you, and if something's getting in the way of that, come back and tell us about it so that we can change legislation,' " Keeley added.
The Online Safety Act was passed in autumn 2023 and has a three-year implementation timeline, leading to criticisms that the rapid evolution of technology has left it lagging.
Keeley has argued that while new legislation might be needed to fix some of the shortcomings, a balance needs to be found between tweaks to the law and changes to Ofcom's enforcement of it.
The routes for addressing issues are diverse, she said: more legislation, more assertive policing by Ofcom, or even a clearer requirement for companies to make their products safe by design.
"We absolutely have to find that balance between what could be changed in the legislation, or what could be changed in terms of Ofcom and their enforcement," she said, adding that none of the committee members "really believe that the platforms have made meaningful changes."
— More legislation? —
A sentiment that overshadowed much of the committee’s discussion was that the intended effects of the act have not yet been felt, Keeley said, and one potential response to its shortcomings would be further legislation.
"I'm not sure we can future-proof the act," Keeley said. “I think one of the frustrations I and other members of the committee feel is that we’re in an area that is moving very fast."
“Some of [these issues] will require legislative change. That might be done by secondary powers, or, depending on how big in scope the changes are, it might be that there's need for another piece of legislation.”
"There are a number of areas out there where the technologies are evolving faster than the legislation and enforcement powers of Ofcom are able to keep up with them."
One possible response, she said, would be a sharper focus on safety by design. For Keeley, that means getting large platforms to accept that the way they build and operate their services can create harm.
“You have to get companies like Meta, TikTok, or X, all of them, to accept that their products are going to have to be safe by design,” Keeley said. "You can't just sell toys that damage children. Pharmaceuticals and other products are subject to controls, age limits and other safeguards. You can’t just sell things to people which damage them.”
— US settlements —
The issue has recently been brought into sharper focus after Meta agreed to a US settlement of up to $17 billion over allegations that addictive algorithms in its
Facebook and Instagram platforms harmed children (see
here).
As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to a range of new safeguards for US users, including stronger age assurance measures, improved parental controls, a daily time limit of two hours for users under 18, and restrictions on notifications during school hours.
Mark Bunting, Ofcom’s director of strategy delivery, said much of the agreement was consistent with the UK framework of the Online Safety Act and its codes of practice. But the settlement went beyond the UK regime in dealing with features and functionalities linked to screen time and platforms’ addictive effects, he said. Those issues had featured in parliamentary debates but were not ultimately brought into the act’s scope.
For Keeley, there are fundamental differences in what can be achieved through legal settlements, such as the ones in the US, and through regulatory frameworks such as the Online Safety Act.
"If you're bringing a case in court about the damage to a child that's been done by a service or a piece of technology, rather than just a failure to comply, you'd understand which would exercise people rather more," Keeley said.
She argued that some of the changes agreed under the US settlements are "happening in this country anyway" because the government is implementing those measures along with a social media ban.
While the committee's inquiry is focused on the act's implementation, the group will also look into proposed measures that go beyond the act, which are set to include a social media ban for under-16s, curfews for certain apps, a ban on AI chatbots for children and restrictions on specific functionalities for certain users.
Keeley said she doesn't believe that these new measures would weaken the OSA regime. Instead, she said, they respond to a social pressure stemming from a public perception that the act hasn't achieved enough.
"Public pressure creates a situation where politicians, in the interest of the public, have to do things like a social media ban. It's not what you want to do. We don't want to ban children from doing things. We want to ban companies having services that harm people and harm children," she said.
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