WIREDGOV

The Global Online Safety Regulators Network (GOSRN) has published a regulatory index, which provides a comparison for how international online safety regulators are approaching their respective regulatory duties.

GOSRN is a forum aimed at supporting collaboration between online safety regulators across the world. By bringing regulators together, the Network aims to bring about coherence between international regulators’ approaches to online safety, through the sharing of information, expertise and experience.

The Network currently comprises nine regulators spanning five continents: the eSafety Commissioner (Australia); Online Safety Commission (Fiji); Arcom (France); Coimisiún na Meán (Ireland); Korea Communications Standards Commission (Republic of Korea); Council for Media Services (Slovakia); Film and Publication Board (South Africa); and Autoriteit Terroristische Content en Kinderpornografisch Materiaal (Netherlands) and Ofcom (UK).

About the index

The regulatory index is designed to further support regulators’ activities towards regulatory coherence, as first outlined in the network’s position statement on regulatory coherence and coordination earlier this year.

It does this by highlighting similarities and differences across the remits of each respective regulator, with the aim of helping both members and our stakeholders to understand the different approaches to online safety regulation. Through this, regulators can aim to ensure that the online safety of internet users in our respective countries does not stop ‘at the border’ and that companies can benefit from economies of scale.

The index identifies work done by the regulators and the contexts within which they work, broken down into four key areas:

• remit and functions;
• regulated harms;
• regulated entities; and
• enforcement powers.

This is the first edition of the regulatory index, with future updates and iterations to follow as the Network grows and the global online safety regulatory landscape continues to develop. For more information take a look at the index in full.