The law must keep pace with technological change but shouldn’t be reactive, write Alexander Brown & Alexandra Webster
Since the start of the year, we have seen concerns about the disproportionate impact of online harms on women and children drive a raft of proposed new legislative measures.
These are intended to plug perceived gaps in the current regulatory regime and include:
- new criminal offences targeting use of emerging technologies such as ‘nudification’ apps to create non-consensual intimate images (NCII);
- proposals to designate cyberflashing and the creation of NCII as ‘priority offences’ under the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023); and
- blocks on social media access or restrictions on design features for under-16s.
These proposals have been tabled at a pivotal moment. OSA 2023, though on the statute book for some years, remains in the early stages of phased implementation and enforcement. In particular, measures that require platforms to identify and address illegal content, including content that poses risks to women and children, have been live for less than a year. But does reactive, harm-specific legislative intervention
