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Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology | Department of Telecommunications (DoT) | Ministry of Women and Child Development
The UK government is taking immediate action to close legal loopholes that put children at risk online. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that all AI chatbot providers will now be forced to abide by illegal content duties under the Online Safety Act or face severe legal consequences. This move follows a successful intervention against the “Grok” platform, which led to the removal of functions allowing the sharing of non-consensual intimate images. The government is also seeking new legal powers to act quickly on measures such as minimum age limits for social media and restricting “addictive design” features like infinite scrolling. To support parents immediately, the “You Won’t Know until You Ask” campaign has been launched to provide practical guidance on safety settings and dealing with harmful material.
Key Pillars of the UK’s Enhanced Online Safety Framework
AI Chatbot Accountability: Closing loopholes to ensure that AI-driven platforms are legally responsible for preventing the generation of vile or illegal content.
Cracking Down on Addictive Design: Moving to restrict features like infinite scrolling that are linked to children’s wellbeing and safety risks.
Age-Verification and Restrictions: Consulting on mandatory age limits for social media and examining options to limit children’s use of VPNs that undermine safety protections.
Safeguarding Data (Molly’s Law): Ensuring that vital social media data following a child’s death is preserved for investigation rather than being deleted by platforms.
Digital Consent and Literacy: Changing the age of digital consent and launching nationwide campaigns to help parents navigate the “minefield” of modern social media.
What is “Addictive Design” in Social Media? Addictive design refers to deliberate software features created to maximize user engagement and time spent on a platform by triggering psychological reward systems. A prime example is “infinite scrolling,” where content continuously loads as a user scrolls down, removing the natural stopping points that would otherwise prompt a person to exit the app. Under the new UK proposals, such features could be restricted for children because they are viewed as predatory mechanisms that undermine self-regulation and lead to prolonged exposure to potentially harmful content.
Policy Relevance
The UK’s shift from “Voluntary Compliance” to “Direct Product Liability” provides a critical benchmark for India as it operationalizes its own India AI Governance Guidelines.
Strategic Impact:
Aligning the “Seven Sutras”: The UK’s focus on “Accountability” and “Safety by Design” directly mirrors India’s People First and Safety & Sustainability sutras, creating a potential for joint standards between the two nations.
Curbing AI-Generated Misconduct: As India maximizes its 2.5x global AI skill penetration, the UK model for holding chatbots liable for “illegal content duties” offers a legal template to prevent the misuse of generative AI in Indian regional languages.
Enhancing Rural Digital Safety: Training 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats through the e-Jagriti and capacity-building series can now include the UK’s “You Won’t Know until You Ask” prompts to help rural parents identify social media harms.
Data Preservation for Justice: India’s law enforcement agencies can leverage the “vital data preservation” principle to ensure that digital evidence in sensitive cases is not wiped before it can be reviewed by the AI Safety Institute.
Impact on the Tech Sector: UK-based restrictions on VPNs and age-verification will force Indian tech-exports and app-developers to adopt more rigorous safety-by-design standards to maintain access to the European market.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders: How should the ‘AI Safety Institute’ (India) collaborate with the UK’s ‘Ofcom’ to create a unified ‘Age-Rating System’ for AI chatbots that protects children across borders?
Follow the full news here: UK GOV: PM Action to Keep Children Safe Online