Tech bosses failing to protect children could face jail in UK

BIRMINGHAM, England

The British government on Tuesday backed down from making an amendment to the Online Safety Bill after lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party rebelled against the ministers.

In its current form, the managers of tech companies will be criminally liable for persistent breaches of duty of care.

The bill aims to protect people, especially children from harmful content online. The legislation will apply to platforms that host user-generated content, which covers the social media and the search engines. Although many of these services are based outside the UK, the bill will have an effect on any platform that is accessible to the UK users.

The tech firms covered by the bill will have to protect all users from illegal content, including child sexual abuse, revenge pornography, selling drugs or weapons, and terrorism. In protecting the youth, these platforms will need to prevent children from accessing harmful content and ensuring that age limits on social media platforms are enforced.

UK’s communication regulator Ofcom will have a range of regulatory powers under the bill, including imposing fines of up to £18 million ($22 million), or 10% of global turnover.

Making managers liable in the bill was initially rejected after a consultation ahead of the bill's introduction, which concluded it could make the UK tech sector less attractive. However, the intra-party opposition managed to make managers accountable for such violations.