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Online Safety Bill: The new changes to battle online fraud

This month the Online Safety Bill saw some changes from the Government to combat online scams and fraud.

It comes after the Government launched a consultation into how online advertising is regulated in the UK.

Within this consultation, there are proposals to improve accountability, plus tackle harmful, fraudulent, and misleading adverts – social media sites and search engines will need to comply with this to strengthen internet safety laws.

The biggest and most favoured social media platforms and search engines will legally have to prevent paid-for fraudulent adverts from appearing on their services.

This move will help to protect internet users from falling victims to potentially devastating fraudulent scams.

Security Minister Damian Hinds commented on the change saying:

“The changes that we are announcing today mean that online and social media companies will have to acknowledge these issues and take robust action to combat the scourge of online fraud and take more responsibility to protect their users from this high-harm crime. Innocent victims must not be taken advantage of and conned online by fraudsters.”

Fraudulent advertising duty

Companies that own search engines and platforms that host user-generated content, video-sharing or live streaming services need to now put in place consistent systems and processes to prevent the publication and/or hosting of fraudulent advertising on their service and remove it when they are made aware of it.

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