As the Online Safety Act begins its phased implementation, the UK government claims the legislation will create a safer digital world for children. While well intended, in reality, the OSA will likely do the opposite.

The legislation is fundamentally flawed – introducing loopholes that children will easily exploit while simultaneously threatening free speech and burdening small online communities with disproportionate liabilities. As we mark Safer Internet Day, it’s important that we understand the consequences of the dangerously flawed new law.

One of the most touted aspects of the Online Safety Act is the mandatory age verification for sites hosting adult content. Yet, this measure is doomed to fail. VPNs, proxy services, adult sites outside of the UK, and the dark web all allow minors to effortlessly bypass the OSA restrictions. Even worse, the OSA restrictions are likely to effectively encourage minors to use sites far more dangerous than those hosted in the UK.

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On the flip-side, OSA puts adults at risk as they must provide personal data, and at times biometric information, to parties to whom they have no prior relationship and whose security practices are as of yet, effectively untested.

Besides the obvious risk of attackers stealing data from the age verification (AV) providers, there is little doubt that cyber criminals will take advantage of the situation by setting up phishing sites that impersonate AV services. We saw how well criminals impersonated fake parcel delivery services during Covid and how many billions of dollars have been lost to phishing attacks over the years – why give them another opportunity to employ these ruthless tactics against innocent people?

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Perhaps even more concerning is the overreach of this legislation. This law does not just apply to major platforms like Facebook, but extends to any platform that facilitates user-to-user engagement – including small community forums, hobbyist groups, and even local church discussion boards. This means that countless website owners and moderators, including those who are working for organisations dedicated to protecting children, who have no legal teams or compliance departments, will suddenly find themselves potentially facing massive multi-million-pound fines.

Many wonderful organisations, and providers of valuable information and services to they community at large may be forced to cease operations out of a fear of unintentionally violating the Act. All of this damage will occur whilst the threats to minors continue to exist – if not become worse.

Sadly, this is already happening.

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By shifting responsibility to individual websites instead of empowering parents, guardians and minors, the path currently chosen by the government is ineffective, worse than the cure that it purports to provide, and exposes internet users to dangers.

Governments that support any such age verification mandates are setting themselves up for a risky political gamble. The OSA is not a step forward; it’s a dangerous misstep destined to fail.

The unintended consequences of the OSA will soon become apparent: minors will still access harmful content; perfectly benign online forums will disappear; precious sensitive data will be disseminated throughout the web and exposed; and free speech will be eroded and the most dangerous online risks to minors. Such as communications from would-be abusers in their physical locations, access to illegal drugs and weapons sold via the dark web, and recruitment attempts by extremist groups, will remain completely unaddressed.

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If the goal is truly to protect children, there are far more effective and proportionate solutions: filtering and device-level checks. Instead of placing the burden on individual websites, parents should keep control of what their children access online. Parental control software, operating system-level restrictions, and internet service provider-level filtering are vastly superior and precise compared to the blunt instrument of the Online Safety Act and the best efforts of Ofcom – the designated regulator that, despite considerable expenditure, simply doesn’t have the tools for the job. By shifting responsibility to individual websites instead of empowering parents, guardians and minors, the path currently chosen by the government is ineffective, worse than the cure that it purports to provide, and exposes internet users to dangers.

Governments that support any such age verification mandates are setting themselves up for a risky political gamble. The OSA is not a step forward; it’s a dangerous misstep destined to fail.

The unintended consequences of the OSA will soon become apparent: minors will still access harmful content; perfectly benign online forums will disappear; precious sensitive data will be disseminated throughout the web and exposed; and free speech will be eroded and the most dangerous online risks to minors. Such as communications from would-be abusers in their physical locations, access to illegal drugs and weapons sold via the dark web, and recruitment attempts by extremist groups, will remain completely unaddressed.

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