Online Safety Taskforce Action Plan 2026/27

Strengthening the law

Strengthening the law and ensuring regulations are consistently applied to protect against harmful and illegal behaviours.

That means building an evidence base, using devolved powers where we can, engaging robustly with the UK government which has reserved responsibility for the regulation and enforcement of online content, and learning from global best practice.

The Scottish Government believes we, as well as our partners and the technology industry, should take all steps possible to prevent online harm. We must ensure children and young people benefit from a legal and regulatory framework that is consistently applied. We will pursue an agreed cross-Scottish Government set of priorities and negotiating objectives with the UK Government and Ofcom.

We will strengthen the law in line with evolving technology and crime, identifying gaps, and informing the need and scope for legislative change to the extent possible within devolved powers. We will develop an evidence base so that we are informed and credible in our engagement. We will work internationally, sharing our experiences and learning from other countries how they have confronted challenges.

Importantly, in our own work, we will engage with and listen to children and young people, respecting their experience. This is not just their right; it also leads to the best results.

Actions

We will robustly engage with the UK Government on reserved legislation that will apply to Scotland, ensuring the voices of Scotland’s children and young people are included in any decisions that may affect them.

• We will continue to engage with the UK Government during the passage of the Crime and Policing Bill. The Bill will strengthen controls on the online sale of offensive weapons and the illegal sale of fireworks.
• We will continue engagement with the UK Government on the proposed changes to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and any resulting secondary legislation, which will place restrictions on children and young people’s ability to access internet services.
• By extending and implementing relevant UK legislation in Scotland, we will further strengthen our approach to preventing and disrupting online harm, and building on work already underway to address child sexual abuse material produced using new and emerging technologies such as AI.
• We will ensure that the voices of the children and young people of Scotland are represented and heard during the UK Government’s Growing up in the online world consultation and national conversation.
• Children have a right to participate in decisions about them; we will build on the UK consultation by seeking views from children, young people, their parents, carers and cross sector partners throughout Scotland.
• We will undertake a review of research on the impact of digital media, including screen time and screen use, on children and young people’s wellbeing to inform the Scottish Governments position on children and young people’s positive digital behaviour.

Our engagement will be credible, informed by the latest international evidence whilst also understanding the experience of Scottish young people, and their parents, carers and practitioners, with social media and online safety. We will learn from global best practice, and build and join international networks, encouraging joint action in our approaches across countries. We will use evidence to inform our policy development and action but not be inhibited when evidence is not clear and definitive.

• We will deliver a project with the Centre for Protecting Women Online (Open University) to provide an overview of Scots law and legal (case law) practice as it relates to technology facilitated VAWG including any limitations of legislation.
• We will appoint a Research & Innovation Fellowship, from February 2026 continuing until August 2027, to inform effective responses to technology facilitated VAWG and to progress work on understanding the drivers and effective prevention. This work will help inform policy decisions and potential future legislative changes.
• The results of a youth survey launched in September 2025 will be published in May 2026. Delivered by YouthLink Scotland and Scotcen, the survey gathered insights from over 1,000 young people on violence prevention and online harm. This will help provide an evidence base to build a better understanding of how these issues affect young people and capture their views as to what can be done to address it.
• We will work with the Home Office to support access to the Preventing Radicalisation Initiative in Scotland to mitigate against radicalisation of children and young people online. Organisations are being identified in Scotland to be part of the approved list for project delivery.
• We will continue to support the work of the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, to support Police Scotland’s enforcement activity on county line drug networks, disrupting organised crime which targets and coerces vulnerable individuals including children.
• Education Scotland will continue to work collaboratively with the National Crime Agency and UK partners to ensure that online harm threat notifications, alerts and information for education staff are adapted to a Scottish context and disseminated quickly across national networks.

Scottish Government will measure and monitor the impact of measures introduced through the Online Safety Act 2023 to protect children from online harms, including the impact of Ofcom’s Codes of Practice and guidance. This will include scrutiny of Ofcom’s monitoring and evaluation reports including recommendations, the UK Government response and what stakeholders are telling us on the ground. We will continue to hold service providers accountable for their actions including what they are doing to comply with the duties placed on them by the Act, and what they are doing to proactively protect children through safety by design. We will also press the UK Government to regularly review the Act, given the rate of technology evolution.

• We will continue to advocate for aligning UK protections afforded through the Online Safety Act with EU standards.
• We will study the EU experience and models such as the Australian eSafety Commissioner model and Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland’s Online Safety Commissioner, in protecting children from harmful online.
• We will continue to participate in the UK Government’s Inter Ministerial Group on Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation to ensure that the Scottish Government can influence decision-making on addressing online harms at the highest level.
• We will pursue a 4 nations approach to online safety, also working with Ireland where beneficial. We will explore engagement with global administrations. And we will press for a 4 nations approach to defining technically informed priorities for engagement with social media companies.
• We will continue to contribute, through the UK Government, to the developing Council of Europe instrument (and recommendations) in relation to combatting technology facilitated violence against women and girls.
• We will seek observer status at Global Online Safety Regulators Network to be better linked in and to participate in international conversations.