Online Safety Act Report 2026

Internet Matters have published a report evaluating the impact of the Online Safety Act from the perspective of children and parents. Based on surveys and focus groups with children aged 9-16 -years-old and their parents, the report explores whether the Act has helped to make children in the UK safer online.

It finds early evidence of progress with positive changes including families seeing more visible safety features and age checks becoming more common. However, the report also finds that children are continuing to encounter harmful content; age verification is widely seen as easy to bypass; and many of the issues most important to families, such as managing the amount of time children spend online and the risks of AI, remain unaddressed.

Families in the study agreed that stronger action to keep children safe online is needed and that more should be done by government and platforms.

You can read the report here.