Online Safety Principal - Protection of Children

About Ofcom

Ofcom is the regulator for the communications services that we use and rely on each day. We make sure people get the best from their broadband, home phone and mobile services, as well as keeping an eye on TV and radio.

Our culture is clear – we live by our values: Empowerment; Excellence; Collaboration; Agility and Respect. These define how we work to deliver our purpose, now and in the future. The behaviours which support these values set the path for a fully inclusive and innovative culture at Ofcom.

We focus not only on what we do, but how we do it. We pride ourselves on being an organisation of people who genuinely care about helping others.

About the Team

This role sits within Ofcom’s Online Safety Team. Online services have become increasingly integral to all parts of our daily lives. The transformative potential of these services is largely positive – helping us found new businesses, collaborate with others, and unlock new ways to learn, create, collaborate, and communicate. And yet, these same services have also exposed users to new forms of harmful content and activity – from online scams to hate speech and extremist content, and from bullying and harassment to child sexual exploitation and abuse.

About the Role

We are looking for two Principals to join our Policy Development team, with a focus on Protection of Children; each covering a different area:

1) Safer online experiences for children

2) Prevention of child online sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) 

You will be part of the leadership team it the Policy Development team and, in particular, the team developing the policy proposals for the protection of children. With the other principals in the PoC team, you’ll be responsible for ensuring that the requirements for the protection of children in the Online Safety Act are translated into clear expectations for companies to follow to comply with their child safety duties. 

The PoC policy development team is responsible for the development of key regulatory products that will lay the foundations for a safer and more age appropriate online experience for children and protecting them from child sexual abuse and exploitation. In particular, the team is working to: 

• Understand the risks of harm to children from their online experiences 
• Establish what services should in scope of the child safety duties and how this translates into the Child Access Assessment requirements 
• Develop tools for services to understand the content that is risky for children and how their content decisions, product design and functionalities create risk for children 
• Create a set of minimum expectations for services accessed by children in accordance with the Act, including expectations on, for example, the use of age assurance to establish if someone is a child, content moderation, user complaints system and the role of the recommender system 
• Create clear expectations for commercial porn providers on how to prevent children from accessing porn by means of highly effective age assurance, in ways that are consistent with the wider set of requirements and expectations in the codes 
• Build on the proposals in the Illegal Harms consultation on how to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation to address the risk that online experiences present to children 
• Develop the guidance for the protection of women and girls against online violence (VAWG guidance)   

These two roles will come to complement a team of committed and experienced policy development principals at a demanding time in the policy development process.

Principal: Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation  

On the CSAE, we are expecting responses to our first set of recommendations in the Illegal Harms consultation and, based on the responses, we will need to turn this into final recommendations for the final code, expected in Spring 2025. In parallel, the team leader will be responsible for developing additional proposals that could help fill the gaps in the current set of recommendations.

The CSAE principal will be expected to keep up to speed with the latest technological developments and the way perpetrators operate to ensure that our recommendations are designed in ways that allow us to keep up to speed with new threats.

A key aspect of the role is fostering the relationships with key stakeholders in the sector, including the NCA, IWF and the NSPCC, as well as international developments and stakeholders.

It is essential for the principal to have a clear understanding of the technology world, how technology is being used and deployed by offenders and the safety technology that service providers are using and developing to tackle this crime. The principal will need to have the ability to foster constructive relationships with service providers, working in conjunction with our Supervision team.  

Principal: Safer online experiences for children 

The Protection of Children team is working towards publication in May of our recommendations setting the foundations for the new child online safety regime. This includes clear recommendations on services in scope, understanding of risk of harm and the expectations on services on how to protect children, including recommendations on how to establish if a user is a child, content moderation expectations and service design, including the role of recommender systems.

Proposals on the role of age assurance build on, and need to be consistent with, the draft guidance on highly effective age assurance for porn providers (Part 5 Guidance).  

This principal role will come at a critical time in the policy development phase and will be working towards a final children’s code (expected in Spring 2025), building the feedback received in consultations on Part 5 Guidance and the protection of children codes to develop a cohesive set of expectations on service providers. The proposals will need to be reflective of our expert understanding of the state of the technology.  The proposals will also need to build on the experience and views of children and young people, which will be an integral part to the consultation.  

The principal will need to have the ability to build strong stakeholder relationships across a set of diverse stakeholders from civil society, including child safety organisations as well as freedom of expression and privacy advocates. Given the cross-border nature of the services, the principal will need to have a good understanding of the wider regulatory developments affecting child safety and key technological developments. The principal will need to have the ability to foster constructive relationships with service providers, working in conjunction with our Supervision team.  

How to Apply

Please submit a covering letter of no more than 500 words outlining your suitability and experience for the role. Please note, you are able to upload multiple documents when you upload your CV.

Please note that this role will close at 00:01 on Friday 22nd March, and therefore we advise getting your application in no later than midnight on Thursday 21st March.