---
title: "Ofcom: the ban doesn't pause platforms' current duties"
description: "Ofcom's open letter of 28 August 2026 tells platforms existing child-safety duties still apply while the ban is built. Nine high-risk sites already acted."
canonical: https://parentalcontrols.co.uk/news/ofcom-duties-still-apply
---

Ban news

# Ofcom tells platforms the ban does not put their current duties on hold

The regulator has written to online services to say the rules protecting children now are unchanged by an under-16 ban that starts in 2027, and it published a tally of what it has been quietly extracting from risky sites in the meantime.

![](/assets/anna-moss.jpg)

By **[Anna Moss](/about)** · Manchester mum of one

Updated 31 August 2026

[Ban hub](/ban)

On 28 August 2026 Ofcom [published an open letter](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/uk-children-protected-from-more-high-risk-sites-as-a-result-of-ofcom-action) telling every online service in scope of the Online Safety Act that the government's plans for an under-16 social media ban have not changed a single thing they are already required to do.

The [letter](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/about-ofcom/public-correspondence/2026/open-letter-on-reminding-services-of-their-duties-under-the-osa-28-august-2026.pdf) is signed by Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom's group director for online safety, and dated 27 August. Its heading is blunt: safety duties remain in force and Ofcom expects full compliance. The June and July announcements about future measures, he writes, “have not affected providers' current obligations under the Online Safety Act 2023”. Services must still complete children's access assessments, assess the risks their platform poses to children and apply the measures in Ofcom's codes of practice: duties that are already live, not the ones arriving in 2027.

The reason a regulator has to say this out loud is that a company reading about a 2027 ban might reasonably decide to wait for it. Ofcom's answer is a set of numbers. In the first 18 months of the Act it has investigated more than 100 platforms and issued fines totalling more than £6 million against ten providers.

It also published what its supervision teams have got out of smaller sites without going near a courtroom. Two sites hosting graphic violence have put age checks in place to keep UK children out. Seven more have blocked UK visitors altogether: five hosting graphic violence, two hosting suicide content. That is nine routes to that material closed off from a UK connection.

Ofcom also confirmed the timetable that matters most for the ban itself. Its rapid assessment of what counts as an effective age check for 16, the technical question the whole policy rests on, will be published in October. Our [ban hub](/ban) tracks where the rules have got to.

What this means for you

There is no protection gap to worry about between now and spring 2027. The duties platforms owe your children are already in force and are being enforced now, whatever happens to the ban. What the letter does not change is that none of it reaches the settings on your own devices, which stay your job. Our [setup guides](/guides) cover the free ones.