If yesterday’s blog post about the Investigatory Powers Amendment Act didn’t cause you to lose the will to live, today you also have 1700+ pages of draft Ofcom guidance to read and respond to, as their round one of Online Safety Act enforcement.
That is what I shall be wonking this week for a client, as much as I’d love to wonk the other thing.
As you read through both and prepare your responses and strategies, as you should be doing, please remember that neither of these legislative processes are about “big tech” “social media” “tech giants”, and anyone who tells you so is full of shite: these processes impact any service of any size in any country which can be accessed in the UK, regardless of innocence or guilt.
Our policymakers assume the latter.
By the way: as you’re doing exactly what I am doing today, which is figuring out how on earth you even create a workplan to turn 1700 pages of cross-referenced consultation language into an actionable task, remember that the impact assessment for the Act famously said that getting to grips with the scope of compliance could be done in just over four hours by a regulatory professional on a wage of £20.62 per hour.