UK OSA Section 12(2) — Duties to prevent children encountering primary priority content
Operate proportionate systems to prevent children of any age from encountering primary priority harmful content including pornography, self-harm, suicide, and eating disorder content
Where this comes from
Provision: Section 12(2) — Duties to prevent children encountering primary priority content
Instrument: UK Online Safety Act 2023
Citation: Online Safety Act 2023, c. 50, Section 12(2); Schedule 7, Part 1 (Primary priority content); Ofcom Children's Safety Codes of Practice (December 2024)
Text version: Online Safety Act 2023 c. 50, as enacted (legislation.gov.uk)
Who it applies to
Child audience (designed for OR likely accessed by children) — any one of these:
- Service is specifically designed for children under 18
- Service is likely to be accessed by children under 18
Remaining applicability scope — all of these:
- Service allows user-generated content
- Youngest user age is Under 13 or 13-15
Scope in the source's own terms
- User-to-user service or search service
- Service available in the United Kingdom
What engineering work it implies
Sample acceptance criteria Landfall generates for this obligation:
- Age gate appears before accessing age-restricted content/features
- DOB input uses dropdowns (not free text) to reduce typos
- System calculates age from DOB, not from user-entered age
- Age is stored and doesn't need to be re-entered on each visit
- Age verification cannot be bypassed by direct URL access
Evidence an auditor expects
- Assessment documentDocument review
Risk assessment for illegal content
Assessment of risks of illegal content appearing on service with mitigation measures
- Technical controlTechnical audit
Content moderation systems
Technical measures to identify and remove illegal content
Questions people ask
- Does UK OSA Section 12(2) — Duties to prevent children encountering primary priori… apply to my service?
- It applies when at least one of: Service is specifically designed for children under 18; Service is likely to be accessed by children under 18; and Service allows user-generated content; Youngest user age is Under 13 or 13-15.
- From when does this apply?
- UK OSA Section 12(2) — Duties to prevent children encountering primary priori… applies from 16 December 2024. Its current status is: in force.
- What evidence does an auditor expect?
- Risk assessment for illegal content; Content moderation systems.
Find out whether this one lands on you
Landfall's pre-scan answers the applicability question above for your product in minutes, then turns every obligation that applies into traceable engineering tickets with a citation chain your auditors can follow.
Not legal advice. Landfall maps regulatory obligations to engineering work for planning purposes. Its verdicts are not legal advice and create no attorney-client relationship — verify with qualified counsel before relying on them.