Recurring concern

Failure to restrict children’s access to hazardous online content

First to latest report 26 Nov 2021 — 4 Nov 2025

Reports that mention this concern
2
Times this concern has been raised
2
Stated actions linked to this concern
3

What this concern includes

Includes failures in online-platform age restriction, age verification or access-control arrangements where children or vulnerable young people can access hazardous or age-inappropriate content, including inadequate content-sensitive age thresholds, absent age verification and unrestricted access to age-inappropriate material.

What is not included
  • Excludes general harmful-content moderation or recommendation failures where the issue is not access by children or vulnerable young people through age-related controls.
  • Excludes neutral descriptions of online content, platform use or statutory age limits without an asserted safety deficiency.
  • Excludes adult access to hazardous online content where child or vulnerable-person access controls are not the material concern.
  • Excludes failures in clinical, educational or public-facing online information systems unless the asserted unsafe condition is children's access to hazardous online content through age-control arrangements.

Reports and published responses 2 reports

See individual reports that have raised this concern, and the actions taken in response

  1. Manchester South

    AI-generated summary

    Oliver Luke Gorman · Prevention of Future Deaths report

    This summary was generated using AI from the published report. Please read the original report for the complete account.

    Report summary

    Oliver Luke Gorman, aged 12, died at home on 5 May 2025 after inhaling butane gas from an aerosol spray. The report raised concerns about the lack of age restrictions on some products containing butane or propane, the adequacy of warnings about inhalation risks, and social media content promoting dangerous challenges.

    Read the report on judiciary.uk

    Source evidence

    How this individual concern was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Age restrictions for social media platforms failing to account for hazardous content exposure

    Wider context from the report

    “3. Social media content and access The posting of challenges such as those listed above, and no doubt others, on social media platforms will continue to take the lives of young, impressionable and/or vulnerable children/teenagers unless the platform providers take responsibility fortheir content and/or toxic algorithms either voluntarily or through Government action. The former seems unlikely. Further the age restriction of 13 years for most social media platforms appears to have been determined in relation to data protection laws rather than of the nature of the content to which they will be exposed, again via any toxic algorithms or any searches they may make. ”

    Source location

    Oliver Luke Gorman · Prevention of Future Deaths report
    Page 2 · concerns

    Open source report

    Source evidence

    How this respondent position was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Responsibility for online safety and responding to the incident lies with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “I can confirm that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) leads on online safety. My colleague at the department, Minister ████████, Minister for AI and Online Safety in DSIT, is best placed to respond to you on this tragic incident, and will be writing to you regarding this within the statutory timeframe.”

    Source location

    Response from Department for Culture, Media and Sport
    Page 1 · response
    Published 5 November 2025

    Open published response

  2. Surrey

    AI-generated summary

    Frances Rose Thomas · Prevention of Future Deaths report

    This summary was generated using AI from the published report. Please read the original report for the complete account.

    Report summary

    Frances Rose Thomas was a vulnerable teenager who, while attending Stepping Stones School, was often left without formal supervision and had unsupervised access to school electronic devices. On 25 September 2018, after accessing material at school, she went home and undertook a similar act resulting in her death. The report raised concerns about inadequate school e-security, monitoring and supervision, outdated regulatory guidance, and insufficient controls over age-inappropriate content on an online platform.

    Read the report on judiciary.uk

    Source evidence

    How this individual concern was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Failure to specifically block age-inappropriate online content accessible to pupils

    Wider context from the report

    “3. ████████ is not a specifically blocked ████████ and not only can it be accessed by Key Stage 4 students there is encouragement to do so in some schools. However, I heard evidence that the sites Frankie accessed through ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. Furthermore, there is inadequate independent scrutiny by ████████ to remove age inappropriate stories put on their platform. ”

    Source location

    Frances Rose Thomas · Prevention of Future Deaths report
    Page 3 · concerns

    Open source report

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Conduct a public consultation on revised Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, including filtering and monitoring systems.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “We continue to review what more we can do to support schools and colleges and see where we can strengthen the guidance further. On 11 January, we launched a public consultation on KCSIE which runs until 8 March. To help us build the evidence base, we have included a question specifically relating to filtering and monitoring systems, which asks schools if they feel able to make informed decisions on which filtering and monitoring systems your school or college should use? Following consultation, we plan to publish revised guidance later this year.”

    Source location

    2021-0408-Response-from-Department-for-Education_Published
    Page 2 · response
    Published 7 December 2021

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Publish revised Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance following consultation.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “We continue to review what more we can do to support schools and colleges and see where we can strengthen the guidance further. On 11 January, we launched a public consultation on KCSIE which runs until 8 March. To help us build the evidence base, we have included a question specifically relating to filtering and monitoring systems, which asks schools if they feel able to make informed decisions on which filtering and monitoring systems your school or college should use? Following consultation, we plan to publish revised guidance later this year.”

    Source location

    2021-0408-Response-from-Department-for-Education_Published
    Page 2 · response
    Published 7 December 2021

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Launch digital, data and technology standards covering data security, cyber security, monitoring and filtering.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “Furthermore, to support schools to have the appropriate safeguarding systems in place, under both child and data protection legislation, we will also be launching a set of digital, data and technology standards from Spring 2022, including standards on data and cyber security, and how to support more robust monitoring and filtering. Through consultation with the education and technology sector, we will explore options on how to ensure schools meet these standards to support system-wide safeguarding policies and how we can further support them to understand and improve their digital environments.”

    Source location

    2021-0408-Response-from-Department-for-Education_Published
    Page 2 · response
    Published 7 December 2021

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent position was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Individual schools and their leaders are responsible for deciding appropriate filtering and monitoring systems according to local circumstances.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “The appropriateness of any filter and monitoring systems is rightly a matter for individual schools. The needs of individual schools will be unique to their own local circumstances. For example, a small rural school’s filtering and monitoring needs will be different to that of a large urban school and the needs of primary schools will be different to the”

    Source location

    2021-0408-Response-from-Department-for-Education_Published
    Page 1 · response
    Published 7 December 2021

    Open published response

Actions and positions describe what organisations say in published responses. Implementation is not independently verified.

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Data last updated 7 September 2026