Source: Children’s Commissioners Office published on this website Tuesday 25 May 2026 by Jill Powell

In response to the news regarding the recent rape case, which was also published on this website Friday 22 May 2026.

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said: 

“The rape of two teenage girls in Fordingbridge is deeply disturbing and has shocked people across the country. My thoughts are first and foremost with the two girls and their families, who have shown extraordinary courage in speaking out about these heinous crimes.

“No child should experience the violence, humiliation and trauma described in this case. The impact of sexual violence does not end when an attack is over, it can impact every part of a young person’s life from their safety and confidence to their education, mental health and their future. It is essential that children who report abuse feel heard, protected and treated with dignity throughout the process.

“As Children’s Commissioner I welcome the urgent review being undertaken by the Attorney General. My office will be reaching out directly to the families involved to offer support. Children must know that if they speak up, adults and institutions will act decisively to keep them safe and deliver justice.”

Source: Ofcom published on this website Thursday 21 May 2026 by Jill Powell

Children in the UK will be better protected from harm as some of the largest and most popular sites and apps agree to introduce significant new anti-grooming measures in response to Ofcom’s public call for action.

Snap, Meta and Roblox have confirmed to the regulator that they will bring in new safety measures designed to better protect children from online strangers who wish them harm - ranging from tighter default settings for children’s contacts and friendship groups, to AI detection tools and direct chat controls.

These new commitments are included in a report, published today, which confirms how major platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snap, TikTok and YouTube – have responded to Ofcom’s demands in March to urgently strengthen protections for children online.

Under the new commitments secured for UK users, children’s safety will be considered upfront by platforms before new features are rolled out to them. In response to our call to end product-testing on children, five of the services have committed to notify the regulator whenever they update their risk assessments before making  significant changes to their services – going above and beyond their duties under the Online Safety Act.^[1] This will ensure that Ofcom is aware of new products and features before they launch, allowing us an opportunity to scrutinise any adverse impact on children.  

Despite these important improvements, there are areas where the response from tech companies raises serious questions. We are particularly concerned about the lack of action from some platforms to make their feeds safer. Similarly, we are not convinced that the commitments from platforms with a strict minimum age of 13 will effectively prevent underage children from accessing their services.

Given these outstanding concerns, we have today announced a five-point action plan to drive further change and hold platforms to account for the safety of children on their platforms.

Online grooming can have devastating, lifelong consequences for victims and we demanded action from tech firms to introduce failsafe online protections for children against adult predators.

In response, Snap has agreed to make significant and long-overdue changes by adopting all the recommended grooming prevention measures under our Illegal Harms Codes. As a result, adult strangers will be prevented from contacting children on Snap by default, and children will no longer be encouraged to expand their friendship groups to people they don’t know. These protections apply only to children using Snap in the UK, and mean they will have stronger safeguards against grooming than users in other countries. The platform will also roll out highly effective age-checks to all users over the summer to ensure that all under-18s in the UK benefit from these new safety measures. 

Roblox has committed to build on its existing anti-grooming protections, announced earlier this year.^[2] The company will now go even further, including by giving parents the ability to switch off direct chat services entirely for under-16s.

Meta has committed to developing a new setting that will hide teens’ connection lists on Instagram by default. The company also plans to roll out AI tools to detect likely sexualised conversations between adults and teens in Instagram direct messages, to report offending accounts to the NCMEC, and to take necessary enforcement action.

We are clear that these commitments must now translate into action. We’ve set clear deadlines by when we expect to see these changes in place and will be scrutinising how effectively they are implemented. We also want to see Meta go even further to prevent grooming and are pushing the company to adopt the network expansion prompts safety measure set out in our Illegal Harms Codes.^[3]

If these promised improvements happen too slowly, or are not properly implemented, we will not hesitate to act. 

Content feeds are children’s primary pathway to harm and we are deeply concerned by the overall response from industry to our challenge to fix the problem.

Meta pledged to extend its 13+ “movie‑style” content settings currently available on Instagram to Facebook, which it says will make its feeds safer by limiting the content teens see to a more age-appropriate level. While this is encouraging, it is too early to tell whether this will meaningfully reduce harm in practice.

Notably, TikTok and YouTube failed to commit to any significant changes to reduce harmful content being served to children, maintaining their feeds are already safe for children. Our wealth of evidence, published today, suggests they are still not safe enough.^[4]

Since the children’s online safety duties came into force in July 2025, there has been little change in children’s overall exposure to harmful content, with nearly three-quarters of 11- to 17-year-olds (73%) encountering it in a four-week period. Just over a third (35%) of these children recalled exposure to harmful content when they were ‘scrolling on their feed’. Half of secondary school aged children who see harmful content recall coming across it on TikTok (53%), followed by YouTube (excluding YouTube kids) (36%), Instagram (34%), and Facebook (31%).

We are sharing these concerns with government as it concludes its consultation: Growing up in the online world.^[5]

We have already issued in-depth, legally-binding requests for information to Meta, TikTok and YouTube on how they detect and prevent children being exposed to harmful content and are currently interrogating their responses. In order to independently verify what services are telling us, we are exploring using new inspection powers under the Online Safety Act. This would require firms to undergo an independent audit - carried out by a skilled expert in this field - and allow us to issue remote inspection notices to observe how services’ content detection, moderation systems, algorithms and age-checks are working in real time.

We are determined to drive change by all means necessary, unless services can demonstrate urgent and credible action plans to make feeds safer for children. Any service that ultimately fails to comply with their duties to protect children, can expect enforcement action.^[6]

Tougher legislation to underpin minimum age enforcement

Despite acknowledging the importance of minimum age policies, none of the companies with a minimum age of 13 on their services convinced us that they are currently enforcing them effectively and the impact is clear. Our latest research shows that 84% of children aged 8–12 are still using one of the top five reaching online services (YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat) despite a minimum age of 13.^[7]

Current online safety laws do not explicitly require services to keep underage children off their platforms by using robust age checks, although the Information Commissioner’s Office can take action in this area under data protection law. ^[8] We have today written to the Secretary of State to advise that, should Government and Parliament wish Ofcom to be able to force firms to enforce minimum age policies effectively, this would need a clearer basis in online safety legislation.

Ofcom’s public scrutiny of these six online services will continue under our five-point action plan. We will continue to drive change by: 

1. Monitoring the implementation of services’ new commitments to ensure they work in practice to better protect children.
2. Continuing to review evidence on recommender feeds and explore whether to use new inspection powers, with a further update in July.
3. Launching enforcement action where we have grounds to suspect non-compliance with the Online Safety Act.
4. Continuing to monitor the real-world experiences of children online through our world-class research.
5. Engaging with Government on the outcome of its consultation so that enforcement of minimum age policies under online safety laws can be strengthened where needed.

Source: Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) published on this website Friday 22 May 2026 by Jill Powell

Three teenage boys have today been sentenced after they were convicted of a knife-point rape and other serious sexual offences against two teenage girls in Hampshire.

The boys, who were aged 13, 14 and 14 at the time of the offences, cannot be named for legal reasons.

During a five-week trial at Southampton Crown Court which resulted in their convictions on 5 March 2026, jurors heard that the victims, aged 14 and 15 at the time, were attacked in separate incidents less than two months apart and were physically overpowered. The girls did not know one another.

In January 2025, a 14 year old girl was assaulted after becoming separated from her friends. She was threatened with a knife and forced to leave her mobile phone and AirTag in a shop so that her movements could not be tracked, before being taken to a secluded area.

Two defendants took it in turns to rape the victim while the others encouraged the offending and filmed the assaults. The defendants left the scene when they believed they had been disturbed. The victim was later found distressed and reported the incident to police.

Forensic evidence supported the victim’s account, including damage to her trousers consistent with the use of a sharp instrument.

The investigation later identified a second victim, aged 15, who was raped in November 2024 by two of the same defendants, both aged 14 at the time.

The court heard that the victim had met one of the defendants online and travelled alone to meet him. They were later joined by another boy and taken to an underpass, where she was raped by both of them.

Today at Southampton Crown Court, Boy A, from Hampshire, who was convicted of two counts of rape and count of taking indecent images of a child, has been sentenced to a three-year youth rehabilitation order.

Boy B, from Dorset, who was convicted of six counts of rape, has been sentenced to a three-year youth rehabilitation order.

Boy C, from Hampshire, who was convicted of two counts of rape, has been sentenced to an 18-month youth rehabilitation order.

Whenever a rape or serious sexual offence case involves a child suspect, it is reviewed by a prosecutor with expertise in both rape and youth offending.

As in all cases, the prosecutor will carefully consider all of the evidence. The prosecutor  will take into account the full circumstances of both the victim and the child suspect to ensure any decision to prosecute is fair, proportionate and reflects the gravity of the offence.

Lucy Paddick, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said:

“This is a deeply concerning case which involved a disturbing level of encouragement between young boys, who acted together to rape two young girls in separate incidents. These girls were forced into sexual activity by boys who brazenly filmed the deeply distressing incidents. After speaking with the victims in this case and reviewing an extensive file of evidence, it was the Crown Prosecution Service’s case that these girls were violated and could not have consented to these terrifying encounters. The CPS worked closely with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary to support the victims and other young witnesses to give their evidence, and we commend them for the courage they showed throughout this trial. Our lawyers will work tirelessly to pursue justice for victims, and we will continue to hold those responsible for crimes of this devastating nature to account, regardless of their age.”

Siobhan Blake, National CPS Lead for Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO), said:

“It is deeply distressing to see any instance of sexual offending, especially when it involves young victims and offenders. Our prosecutors tell us they are seeing youth-on-youth cases with some involving more serious and more violent behaviour.  

“It is vital young people are educated and informed about consent and that harmful and misogynistic attitudes are tackled as early as possible to prevent these crimes. Everyone has a part to play. Young people must understand that sexual activity without consent is a serious criminal offence that can lead to them being prosecuted.

“To any young person who has been a victim of crime or who has seen or heard about sexual abuse happening – please tell a trusted adult. You are not in trouble, and we will be here to support you through the next steps.”

Source: National Cyber Security Centre published on this website Wednesday 20 May 2026 by Jill Powell

Passkeys should now be consumers’ first choice of login across all digital services, the UK government’s technical authority on cyber security has announced.

Overhauling decades of security practice, the National Cyber Security Centre – a part of GCHQ – has taken the decision to no longer recommend individuals use passwords where passkeys are available because passwords lack the relative resilience to modern cyber threats.

Passkeys are a newer method for logging into online accounts which do much of the heavy lifting for users, only requiring user approval rather than needing to input a password. This makes passkeys quicker and easier to use and harder for cyber attackers to compromise.  

A new technical report, published on Day Two of CYBERUK – the UK government’s flagship cyber security event in Glasgow, shows that passkeys are at least as secure as, and generally more secure than, pairing the strongest password with two-step verification (2SV).

The majority of cyber harms to individuals start with criminals stealing or compromising login details, making the adoption of passkeys a huge leap in boosting the UK’s resilience to phishing attacks.

A number of popular online service providers already support passkeys, including Google, eBay and PayPal – and new data from Google shows the UK already lead global adoption of passkeys, with just over 50% of active Google services users in the UK having one registered.

The NCSC stopped short of endorsing the adoption of passkeys last year due to some key implementation challenges. However, progress within industry means they can now be recommended to the public as the more secure and user-friendly login method and to businesses as the default authentication option to offer consumers. 

“Adopting passkeys wherever you can is a strong step towards a safer, simpler login experience and I am pleased that we can now support uptake. The headaches that remembering passwords have caused us for decades no longer need to be a part of logging in where users migrate to passkeys – they are a user-friendly alternative which provide stronger overall resilience. As we aim to accelerate the UK’s cyber defences at scale, moving to passkeys is something all of us can do to improve the security of everyday digital services and be prepared for modern and future cyber threats.”

Jonathon Ellison, Director for National Resilience, NCSC

Where a particular service does not support passkeys, the NCSC’s advice to consumers is to use a password manager to create stronger passwords and keep using two-step verification.

Making passkeys the default authentication recommendation is a critical step towards revolutionising the way individuals use and access their online identities.

The key benefits include:

• Easy to use:

Fast, frictionless passkey logins can be completed up to eight times faster than signing in with a username, password and two‑step verification code.

• Harder to compromise:

Passkeys are highly resistant to phishing attacks and cannot be intercepted, reused or guessed like passwords can.

• Reduced password fatigue:

Users no longer need to meet additional requirements, such as creating complex passwords – or even remembering them at all. This prevents weak points and patterns developing across a user’s online presence.

• Security that pays off:

Safety and savings can go hand in hand for online service providers that make passkeys available for customers, replacing SMS-based verification systems which incur additional costs.

Last year, the UK government announced it would roll out passkey technology for its digital services as an alternative to the current SMS-based verification system, offering a more secure and cost-effective solution that could save several million pounds annually. 

For permission to share this information Open Government Licence