Tag: Ofcom

UK May Sentence Execs to Jail Time for Their Platform’s ‘Crimes’

Regulators in the UK are taking the gloves off, considering legislation that would impose jail time for execs whose platforms are guilty of “crimes.”

Social media and online platforms are increasingly under scrutiny around the world for their role in abusing user privacy, interfering in politics, endangering minors and spreading misinformation. Regulators have been struggling to come up with solutions that will effect change, with little results so far.

According to Gizmodo, UK regulators have proposed adding penalties to the Online Safety Bill that could land executives in jail if their platforms are found to be causing “online harm.” The recommendations were made by Ofcom, the parliamentary group that oversees the telco and broadcasting industry.

Unfortunately for tech companies, the bill has been accused of being so broad that it could encompass virtually anything thought to be “harmful,” with little clear guidelines of what that may be. The bill would also penalize any website that allows individuals to post content and/or interact with each other online, not just the Big Tech platforms. Ofcom does seem to address some of this, recommending more narrow definitions of what “online harm” may be covered.

Whatever the outcome, if the bill becomes law it will have profound implications for how companies do business in the UK.

December 14, 2021
UK Regulators Find No 5G Health Risk
UK regulators have tested the electromagnetic fields (EMF) created by 5G and have found no cause for concern.

5G represents a fundamental shift in wireless technology, ushering in speeds never before possible with 4G. The fastest type of 5G, high-band mmWave, offers speeds measured in gigabits rather than megabits. Unfortunately, mmWave has extremely limited range, requiring towers, base stations and boosters to be placed every couple hundred meters to provide proper coverage.

That blanketing coverage, not to mention the higher frequency, has caused concern among experts and advocates who believe 5G’s EMF emissions pose serious health concerns. In an effort to provide clarity on those concerns, UK regulator Ofcom conducted tests in 16 locations, across 10 different cities, according to Ofcom’s report (PDF).

“The results so far indicate that:
- In all cases, the measured EMF levels from 5G-enabled mobile phone base stations are at small fractions of the levels identified in the ICNIRP Guidelines (the highest level being approximately 1.5% of the relevant level); and
- The contribution of 5G to the total emissions level observed is currently low – the highest level we observed in the band used for 5G was just 0.039% of the reference level.”
Ofcom acknowledges in the report that 5G adoption is still in the early stages, and says it will continue to monitor EMF measurements as the technology continues to roll out. In the interim, however, the study is good news for wireless carriers and customers alike.
February 25, 2020
People In The UK Spend Nearly A Quarter Of Their Time Online

Consumers in the UK are spending nearly half (45%) of their time watching TV, using mobiles or other communication devices, according to a new survey by government regulator Ofcom.

They are now sending four times as many texts per day than in 2004, spending nearly a quarter of their time on social networking site like Facebook and Twitter and spending 3 hours and 45 minutes watching TV per day.

“For the first time we can see just how central media and communications are to our lives – on average we use them for nearly half our waking hours,” said Peter Phillips, Ofcom Partner, Strategy & Market Developments.

“Younger people have shown the biggest changes in how we use media – particularly using different media at the same time. But the divide between younger and older people’s use of technology is starting to narrow as more older people are getting online and finding that things like email are very important to them.”

There has been an increase in smartphone ownership, with growth particularly strong over the last year, up by 81 percent from 7.2 million user in May 2009 to 12.8 million in May 2010. In June 2010, over a quarter of people in the UK (26.5 per cent) said they had a smartphone, more than double the number two years previously.

In the first quarter of 2010 nearly a quarter of adults (23 per cent) accessed content or sent emails on their mobile phones, up from 20 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Among 15-24s this rises to 45 per cent.

Surfing the Internet via mobile phones is the fastest growing mobile media activity with 1 million new users during the first quarter of 2010 (taking the total to 13.5 million, compared to 9 million in the first quarter of 2009).

Facebook was the most popular mobile site in terms of time people spent on it accounting for almost half (45%) of total time spent online on mobiles in December 2009.

UK consumers sent a record number of texts (104 billion) in 2009 – equivalent to 1700 for every person in the UK (up 25 per cent on 2008 and 290 per cent on 2004).

Social networking accounts for nearly a quarter of all time spent on the Internet (23% compared to 9% in 2007.) This has been driven by the rapid growth of Facebook which grew by 31 percent.

August 19, 2010
UK Kids Ignoring Facebook Age Limits

A quarter of children in the UK aged 8-12 who use the Internet at home say they have a profile on Facebook, Bebo or MySpace, although the minimum age is 13, according to new research from communications regulator Ofcom.

The majority (83%) of these children have their profile set so it can only be seen by friends, and 4 percent have a profile that can’t be seen. Parents of these children who are aware that their child visits social networking sites (93%) also say they check on what their child is doing on such sites. However one in six (17 per cent) parents of this group are not aware that their child visits social networking sites.

Downloading or watching TV episodes or movies on the Internet has increased by 4 percent in the past year by children aged 8-15 who use the Internet at home (from 17 percent in 2008 to 21 percent in 2009).

Ofcom found nearly half (44%) of those aged 12-15 believe that downloading shared copies of films and music for free should not be illegal, with 18 percent saying they don’t know and 38 percent saying it should be illegal. Boys were more likely to say it should not be illegal (48%).

Blogs or sites like Wikipedia where users can add or change information are visited by 18 percent of those aged 8-11 and almost half of those 12-15 (48%). Users of these sites aged 8-11 are much more likely than 12-15 to believe that the information on these types of sites is all or mostly true (70 per cent vs. 48 per cent) with boys aged 8-15 more likely than girls of this age to believe that all or most of the information is true (59 per cent vs. 46 per cent).

Two in five users of social networking sites aged 8-11 and 12-15 also believe that all or most of the information on these sites is true (38% and 40% respectively). One in four aged 12-15 (27%) who use search engines think that they only return results from websites with truthful information.

March 28, 2010