Potentially hot on the heels of yesterday's announcement (https://mastodon.neilzone.co.uk/@neil/117236701809921531), Ofcom has today announced:
> Enforcement programme into measures being taken by services to prevent users from encountering or sharing non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII)
You might recall that Ofcom has previously updated its Illegal Content Code of Practice, to
> recommend that those service providers that fall within scope use hash matching technology to detect NCII, for the purpose of then making an illegal content judgement.
The new code comes into force on 30 September 2026.
It will be interesting to see which services Ofcom considers are of greatest risk here.
UK #OnlineSafetyAct announcements today
> the government is today committing to introducing primary legislation to require major tech platforms to build in device-level protections for children
...
> the government will also require apps - that children use - to prevent them from accessing or sharing nudity, as soon as possible
The detail of these will be interesting.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/lisa-nandys-statement-on-protecting-children-online
@neil I'd have thought hash matching would only address a tiny proportion of a subset of NCII?
It'd be no use for people using genAI to undress images, for example, because they'd first need to be seen and reported (though I guess it limits distribution beyond that point).
I'd have thought it's probably only likely to be of practical use for real imagery, shared without consent (i.e. so called revenge porn) - but even then only if it's been reported.