"New online safety law risks excluding people with learning disabilities"
The UK’s new Online Safety Act, designed to protect vulnerable users, could end up shutting people with learning disabilities out of the digital world altogether, a social care leader has warned.
Under the Act, which came into force in July, social media platforms must carry out strict age checks to keep children away from harmful content. While no single method has yet been prescribed, options include ID checks and AI face recognition.
For many people with learning disabilities and/or autism, however, these systems are unworkable, says David Holmes, founder of Big Life Adventure, a new digital platform for people with learning disabilities and/or autism.
Holmes points out that many people with learning disabilities may not have passports or driving licences and that AI facial recognition tools could misjudge the age of people with Down Syndrome or autism. Complex, multi-step verification processes can also be confusing, inaccessible, and anxiety-inducing.
Holmes has now written to Ofcom, the communications regulator, warning that the new rules risk “entrenching digital exclusion for people with learning disabilities” by shutting them out from safe online spaces, like Big Life Adventure, which are designed to support them.
“Age verification requirements are disproportionately restrictive for people with learning disabilities, many of whom struggle with formal identification systems. This risks excluding them entirely from safe, well-moderated digital communities like ours,” he says.
“The Act appears to prioritise compliance mechanisms designed for large commercial players, while failing to account for smaller, specialist platforms whose users rely on tailored safeguarding approaches.”
Campaigners and digital-rights groups are concerned that some age-assurance approaches could amount to indirect discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
Companies who fail to meet the requirements risk enforcement action by Ofcom, including fines (the Act provides for penalties up to 10% of global turnover or the statutory fixed-sum cap) or restrictions on services
Holmes, who funded Big LIfe Adventure himself, said his motivation for creating the platform was to tackle the “huge gap” between the lives of people with learning disabilities and the rest of society.
Big Life Adventure provides a safe, inclusive space where users can connect, express themselves and build friendships. Its built-in AI tool Big Life Buddy is designed to detect and flag illegal or harmful content and harassment before posts go live and to provide in-platform education to help users reword or rethink messages.