ESafety, EU, UK Join Forces for Child Online Safety

Joint Press Communication under Administrative Arrangements

• In today's digital age, children increasingly engage with online platforms for education, entertainment and social interaction. At the same time, they are susceptible to online risks that can have significant and long-lasting effects on their privacy, safety and security, including their mental and physical health and wellbeing.
• eSafety, DG CNECT (the European Commission's Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology), and Ofcom (the UK's Office of Communications) recognise that online platforms can and should do more to protect and empower children online ensuring that they grow up in a safe online environment. They are also committed to protecting children's rights as recognised by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• In this context, eSafety, DG CNECT, and Ofcom are advancing online child safety on online platforms together as follows.

Regulator commitments to protect and empower children online

• eSafety, DG CNECT, and Ofcom are committed to continue fully implementing, supervising, and enforcing their respective online safety legislation diligently and following due process to ensure a safe and secure online environment for children. In doing so, they will take into account children's rights and wellbeing.
• Through the supervision and enforcement of their rules, eSafety, DG CNECT, and Ofcom aim to ensure that platforms effectively assess and mitigate risks to children arising from the design, operation, and use made of their services, and that they deploy privacy-preserving highly effective age assurance to protect children from harmful content and risky functionalities, where required.
• eSafety, DG CNECT, and Ofcom are committed to working closely with civil society organisations and academia in the development and implementation of their respective online safety regulatory functions.
• The three regulators will make use of relevant regulatory tools to ensure children have safe, inclusive, and empowering access to digital technologies that help them develop media literacy, critical thinking, and digital skills, reducing future digital divides and supporting confident, informed online engagement. This includes ensuring children and their parents/guardians have the opportunity to inform the implementation of regulatory protections for children.
• The three regulators are committed to ensuring that online safety regulation delivers real improvements in the online experience of children, and that online services continue to make the improvements required to ensure a safer life online for them.

Deepening partnership on age assurance through a new technical cooperation group

• The three regulators are committed to continuing close, regular cooperation under their administrative arrangements to promote and protect the rights of children in the digital environment.
• In line with these administrative arrangements, the three regulators intend to establish a technical trilateral cooperation group on age assurance to deepen cooperation on this pressing issue.
• This trilateral cooperation group will explore, among other topics, the interoperability of age assurance solutions as well as broader technological developments, and consider best practices for the evaluation of age assurance deployments and their robustness.
• This trilateral cooperation group will also explore how the three regulators can further build the technical evidence base with respect to age assurance and, where relevant, how regulators can support independent research in this field.
• This deeper technical cooperation aims to ensure that children are better protected online through the deployment of effective, safe and privacy-preserving age assurance.