The Online Safety Act 2023 establishes a new legal and regulatory framework for certain online services and digital communications, including new expectations on organisations’ digital activities, new powers for Ofcom, new fines and criminal sanctions.

With the substantial shift towards online delivery by charities and social enterprises driven, in part, by pandemic restrictions, it is important to consider whether these new requirements will affect your not-for-profit organisation.

While the new laws will mostly affect tech companies, some requirements will apply to organisations that operate digital services (such as apps, websites etc) that allow people to:

• create and share content; or

• interact with each other.

This will include many chat, instant messaging, and discussion forums, even if they are available only to members (including most online peer support groups).

Ofcom’s roadmap for implementation says that the early phases of implementation will focus on new requirements regarding harms from illegal content, child protection and protection of women and girls.

Ofcom will issue new guidance and codes of practice , including its intended approach to enforcement. For projection of children, women and girls this will be in Spring 2024 and for illegal harms in Autumn 2024.

If your charity or social enterprise provides the types of online services outlined above, you need to check whether the Act will apply to you. If it does, you should start preparing by doing research into the requirements, getting advice and adapting your online platforms and services to meet the likely new requirements.

Of course it is not just about legal compliance. The potential for harm to beneficiaries arising from online service delivery is real and growing. If you haven’t already done so, you should review and update your safeguarding policies, risk assessments and other policies and procedures to ensure they explicitly and robustly deal with safeguarding and risk management in online and digital contexts.

You can read more about the support we offer on not-for-profi governance or contact us at julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk.