Tech bosses face jail if they hamper Ofcom investigations from next year

Tech bosses face the threat of prosecution and up to two years in jail if they hamper investigations by the communications watchdog from next year, under a wide-ranging overhaul of a landmark online safety bill.

The government has reduced a grace period for criminal prosecution of senior managers by 22 months from two years to just two months, meaning tech bosses could be charged with offences from early next year.

The change was announced as the government publishes a revamped online safety bill, which places a duty of care on social media platforms and search engines to protect users from harmful content. The new measures include:

Tech firms must prevent scam adverts from appearing online.

Big platforms must tackle specific categories of legal but harmful content, which could include racist abuse and posts linked to eating disorders.

Sites hosting pornography must carry out age checks on people trying to access their content.

It introduces a further two new criminal offences that apply to companies and employees: tampering with information requested by Ofcom; and obstructing or delaying raids, audits and inspections by the watchdog. A third new criminal offence will apply to employees who provide false information at interviews with the watchdog.

It is split into several categories which include: limiting the spread of illegal content such as terrorist material, child sexual abuse images and hate crime; protecting children from harmful content; and for the biggest platforms, protecting adults from legal but harmful content which is likely to include racist abuse and content linked to eating disorders.