Children today are growing up in a digitally accessible world where time spent online can bring lots of social and educational benefits, but we also know that harmful content can often be just a click away. One of the most concerning issues is how easily children and young people can access pornography, often unintentionally, and the lasting effects this can have on their understanding of sex, consent, and relationships.
That’s why we have long campaigned for stronger online protections and while recent changes by Ofcom under the Online Safety Act mark an important step forward, there is more work to be done to address evolving and emerging threats.
Zainab Hannan, our Policy Officer on Health and Harms, explains what the Online Safety Act is and what further action we're calling for to make sure children are safer online.
Content warning: This blog contains content surrounding pornography, domestic abuse, violence against women and girls, and sexual abuse.
How the Online Safety Act can help
The Online Safety Act is a landmark piece of legislation designed to make the UK the safest place in the world for children to be online. It places clear responsibilities on tech companies to:
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Protect children from harmful content.
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Ensure platforms are age appropriate.
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Prevent under-18s from accessing pornography.
Working alongside other charities, we campaigned for the robust age verification measures in the Online Safety Act to stop children accessing pornographic content on both dedicated pornography websites and social media platforms.
From 25 June 2025, all sites and apps that allow pornography must have strong age checks in place – known as ‘highly effective age assurances’ – to ensure children can’t access pornographic or other harmful content.
60% of UK children aged 8–11 already have a profile on at least one social media site, despite most platforms having a minimum age of 13. [Ofcom, 2022]
Under Ofcom’s new guidance:
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Pornography sites must verify that users are 18 or over before allowing access.
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Social media companies must prevent under-13s from using their platforms and restrict harmful content for under-18s.
What still needs to change
Making age checks more effective
Highly effective age assurance (HEAA) checks are a huge step forward in creating a safer online world for children and young people. But the work doesn’t stop there. HEAA needs to be rolled out in a robust way, with Ofcom encouraging innovation to close any loopholes and keeping a close watch on any unintended consequences.
We also need Ofcom’s guidance to go further by setting a clear, numerical definition of what “highly effective” means. This would mean the whole tech industry is working to the same standard, making it easier to enforce the rules. For example, HEAA could be defined as ‘technology that correctly identifies users under 18 years old at least 99% of the time’.
Combatting the normalisation of misogyny and violence against women and girls
Current laws have failed to stop the widespread availability of violent and degrading pornography online, which can normalise harmful gender stereotypes, misogyny, and behaviours that lead to violence against women and girls.
A report by the Children’s Commissioner for England found that 47% of young people they asked thought girls expected sex to involve physical aggression [Children’s Commissioner, 2023].
Content that would be illegal offline – including sexualising children, depictions of incest, and extreme sexual violence such as forced penetration, gagging, and strangulation – remains easily accessible and is often considered mainstream online. We know that exposure to this kind of violent material can influence real-life behaviour, too. In one case, a 12-year-old strangled his girlfriend after their first kiss because he believed it was “normal” having seen similar acts in pornography.
Closing the gap between online and offline standards
Children still face risks from harmful and ‘barely legal’ material online that doesn’t fall under the definition of pornography. Offline, violent or degrading pornography that sexualises children, depicts incest, or shows acts such as strangulation or forced penetration is prohibited by law. Yet online, this type of content can be just a few clicks away.
We fully support the recommendations outlined in the February 2025 independent review of pornography, ‘Creating a Safer World – the Challenge of Regulating Online Pornography’. We believe these changes are essential to protecting children online and we’re committed to pressing for decisive government action and implementation of the recommendations as part of the pornography taskforce.
At Barnardo’s, we also co-chair a coalition with the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation) working to close this gap by calling on the government to ensure the same classification standards used by the British Board of Film Classification for DVDs and on-demand services apply to online pornography – whether on dedicated porn sites or on social media.
Artificial Intelligence could further widen the gap between online and offline protections if action isn’t taken now. AI tools are already capable of generating convincing fake images and without safeguards, these tools could be used to create child sexual abuse material.
We’re also calling for regulation to prevent AI models from being misused in this way. We believe this should be part of a safety-by-design approach to ensure that protections are built into technologies from the start.
The introduction of ‘highly effective age assurance’ in the Online Safety Act marks real progress in keeping children and young people safe online, but it’s only the beginning. We’ll continue working with Ofcom to make sure the Online Safety Act is robustly enforced to deliver on its promise to better protect children from harm online.
Keeping children safe online
Every child deserves to feel safe online – and we all have a part to play. Find out more about online safety from the experts.
How does pornography harm children?
We spoke to Barnardo’s Senior Policy Advisor Jess Edwards, and Development Children’s Service Manager Laura Tomsa, to discuss the impact of pornography on children and young people and what we are doing to protect them from it.
Looking after your child’s mental health when they are online
Dr Amina Al-Yassin, a sessional GP for Barnardo’s, shares some guidance about keeping children and young people safe online, her tips for balancing your family’s mental health and wellbeing as well as the positives of the internet.