The below is relevant and accurate as of August 2024.
The Global Online Safety Regulators Network
The Global Online Safety Regulators Network (GOSRN) was launched in November 2022 and is the first dedicated forum for independent online safety regulators around the world. The Network enables regulators to share experience, expertise, and evidence, paving the way for coherent international approaches to online safety regulation.
The Network is open to regulators that:
- have legislated online safety functions;
- meet criteria on independence from political and commercial interference; and
- are committed to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Through its observer programme, the Network also brings together a range of organisations and stakeholders that work on online safety issues and are committed to working collaboratively with independent online safety regulators. These could be civil society, policymakers, and multilateral organisations.
Members and observers exchange insight through regular engagement, including through the Network’s working groups. Currently, the Network runs two working groups: a Technology Working group, aimed towards enhancing technical expertise and coordination among members and observers, and an Education and Awareness Working Group focused on exchanging good practice for promoting digital and media literacy.
How the Network is collaborating to tackle online child sexual abuse
Members of the Network understands that neither the harms children face online, nor the online services they use, are confined to national or continental borders. Accordingly, the Network is prioritising driving greater coherence in regulatory approaches across areas of similarity and sharing expertise with each other where there are areas of difference.
The Network has developed several workstreams to advance regulatory coherence, including an observer programme, working groups, and regular regulator dialogues. Through these, the Network is collaborating to tackle online child sexual abuse: the observer programme has enabled the Network to streamline engagement and knowledge exchange with CSAM and child protection experts including NCMEC, while the Technology Working Group has brought together members and observers together to discuss different approaches to tackling AI-generated CSAM.
As the Network grows and develops, it will continue collaborating to tackle online child sexual abuse. The Network will also begin working in earnest with other groups working to tackle online harms to ensure that regulators are working with other sectors like law enforcement, hotlines, civil society and other experts.
Sources
About the Global Online Safety Regulators Network - Ofcom
Position Statement on Human Rights and Online Safety - GOSRN