Online Harms White Paper: Full Government response

The Online Harms White Paper sets out the government’s plans for a world-leading package of online safety measures that also supports innovation and a thriving digital economy. This package comprises legislative and non-legislative measures and will make companies more responsible for their users’ safety online, especially children and other vulnerable groups.

The White Paper proposes establishing in law a new duty of care towards users, which will be overseen by an independent regulator. Companies will be held to account for tackling a comprehensive set of online harms, ranging from illegal activity and content to behaviours which are harmful but not necessarily illegal.

This consultation aims to gather views on various aspects of the government’s plans for regulation and tackling online harms, including:

• the online services in scope of the regulatory framework;
• options for appointing an independent regulatory body to implement, oversee and enforce the new regulatory framework;
• the enforcement powers of an independent regulatory body;
• potential redress mechanisms for online users; and
• measures to ensure regulation is targeted and proportionate for industry.

This is an open public consultation. We particularly encourage responses from organisations, companies and others with relevant views, insights or evidence.

This consultation closes at 23:59, 1 July 2019.

An easy read version of the Executive Summary will be available shortly.