OFCOM’S new online child safety rules were criticised today for failing to prevent harmful content being shared on encrypted private messaging apps.

Children’s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza said that the regulator’s final children’s codes of practice “prioritise the business interests of technology companies over children’s safety.

“Children should not be expected to police the online world themselves,” she said.

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children policy manager for child safety online Rani Govender said: “Private messaging platforms remain especially concerning as unmoderated harmful content can spread like wildfire.

“While Ofcom have looked to add some protections, end-to-end encrypted services will continue to pose an unacceptable, major risk to children under the current plans.”

Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation — set up in honour of Molly Russell, who took her life aged 14 after viewing harmful content on social media — said the proposals were “giving far too much weight to industry, rather than focusing on how it builds measures or how it sets objectives that can actually tackle the problem.”

Under the codes, any site which hosts pornography or content encouraging self-harm, suicide or eating disorders must have robust age-verification tools in place to protect children from accessing that content.

Platforms will also be required to configure their algorithms to filter out harmful content from children’s feeds and recommendations, ensuring that they are not sent down a rabbit hole of harmful content, and to give children more control over their online experience through tools to block and filter out content and connection requests.

In total, the codes set out 40 practical measures that firms must implement by July in order to fulfil their duties under the Online Safety Act.