Snapchat improves risk assessment as result of Ofcom enforcement action

Ofcom has today confirmed that – in direct response to action from the enforcement team – Snapchat has materially improved its illegal content risk assessment, which will ensure it is required to implement a broad range of safety measures, in line with their codes of practice, to protect the UK public.  

Risk assessments are fundamental to keeping users safer online. In order to put in place appropriate safety measures to protect people, especially children, providers must first understand how harm could take place on their platforms, and how their user-base, features and other characteristics could increase those risks of harm.  

As the UK’s independent online safety watchdog, part of Ofcom’s job is to make sure tech firms carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments, in line with their guidance.  

After reviewing Snapchat’s illegal content risk assessment, Ofcom raised concerns about its suitability and sufficiency. Snapchat provided a revised version in response, but these initial changes still failed to adequately address the concerns. In particular, Ofcom remained of the view that Snapchat’s assessment of risk did not accurately reflect the likelihood of illegal content or activity occurring on the platform.  

Ofcom informed Snapchat that they were considering enforcement action, in response to which it committed to conducting a full revision of its risk assessment, including a comprehensive reassessment of the risk levels it had previously assigned across all identified harms.  

Given Snapchat’s willingness to address the concerns constructively and promptly, Ofcom entered Snapchat into a formal process known as compliance remediation – providing the company with one final opportunity to come into compliance.

As a result, Ofcom saw a significant change in its revised risk assessment to address the concerns, which will ensure Snapchat must put a broad range of safety measures in place, commensurate with the risks to UK users that is has identified. Ofcom will now be scrutinising the measures Snapchat puts in place, including how effective they are at protecting people from harm.  

Suzanne Cater, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Making sure tech firms properly assess the risks of harm to their users, and then take the necessary steps to mitigate those risks, is at the very heart of the Online Safety Act. We’ve reviewed thousands of pages of risk assessments from companies across the sector and where we’ve seen platforms fall short, we’ve taken action to drive change.

“We left Snap’s senior management under no illusions about what we expect of them, and that we were ready to take formal enforcement action if they didn’t radically improve their approach to assessing and acknowledging the risks of illegal content or activity on Snapchat. This prompted Snap to engage constructively with us, and our action resulted in material changes to its risk ratings across the board, which will ensure that Snapchat must implement all measures necessary to address the risks identified on its platform.”