British Government Vows Changes to Toughen Children’s Online Safety Laws

Last month, Elon Musk’s Grok promised to make changes to its AI assistant in the U.K. to prohibit its use to create non-consensual sexual deepfakes—including of children—after the government threatened the company with criminal sanctions. In his latest comments, Starmer said it is now time to do the same with “all AI bots.”

No online platform will “get a free pass” over children’s online safety, he added, promising to “crack down on the addictive elements of social media.”

Per the BBC, specific proposals in the planned crackdown include:

• Requiring coroners to notify Ofcom of the death of every child 5-18 so it can ensure tech companies do not delete their data in case it is relevant to how they died;
• Extend the Online Safety Act to explicitly cover AI chatbots;
• Getting new technology-related legislation through Parliament more quickly.

The Online Safety Act was enacted in 2023, before chatbots like Grok and ChatGPT were in wide use.

Under current rules, a child’s data must be requested from tech companies within 12 months of their death by either a coroner or the police. Bereaved parents have complained that delay often results in data being deleted before its possible relevance can be assessed. The government’s proposal would amend the Crime and Policing Act to require immediate notification.

In an article posted on Substack, Starmer wrote, “We will be going to Parliament for new government powers, enabling us to act on the findings of social media consultation where the evidence suggests we need to.”

We’d love to be your preferred source for news.

Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks!

Add as Preferred Source

Those could include setting a minimum age limit for social media, preventing children from using VPNs to evade age checks, and restricting certain functionalities “that are detrimental to kids’ wellbeing and keep them hooked on their screens,” such as auto-play and perpetual scroll.

Read more: UK Considers Australian-Style Social Media Ban for Under-16s; Moves to Tighten AI Safety Laws

Speaking separately to the BBC’s Today program, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said, while proper public consultation was essential, the government should still be able to act quickly once it reached a decision.

“The first time the Online Safety Act was discussed I think was in a green paper in 2017 – that process is too long, because the technology is changing so quickly,” she said. “MPs have a Finance Bill every year with the budget – I think we need to think like that with technology because it is changing so fast.”

Children’s safety advocates welcomed Starmer’s remarks but said the government should take further steps.

“Sir Keir Starmer should commit to a new Online Safety Act that strengthens regulation and makes clear that product safety and children’s wellbeing is the cost of doing business in the UK,” said Andy Burrows, chief executive of the suicide prevention charity the Molly Rose Foundation.

Liberal Democrat spokeswoman Munira Wilson accused the government of “kicking the can down the road” and called for a “much clearer, firm timeline” for making the changes.

Kendall said the government was “determined to give children the childhood they deserve and to prepare them for the future at time of rapid technological change” and would “not wait” to take the action families needed.