What is the Online Safety Act and how can you keep children safe online?

Technology companies will have to take more action to keep children safe on the internet, following the introduction of the Online Safety Act. But the new rules will not come in until 2025 - and critics say they do not go far enough. How much time do UK children spend online? Children aged eight to 17 spend between two and five hours online per day, research by the communications regulator Ofcom suggests. Time spent online increases with age. Nearly every child over 12 has a mobile phone and almost all of them watch videos on platforms such as YouTube or TikTok. Four in five teenagers who go online say they have used artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT or Snapchat's MyAI.About half of children over 12 think being online is good for their mental health, according to Ofcom. But there is a significant minority for whom that is not the case. One in eight children aged eight to 17 said someone had been nasty or hurtful to them on social media, or messaging apps. The Children's Commissioner said that half of the 13-year-olds her team surveyed reported seeing "hardcore, misogynistic" pornographic material on social media sites. What online parental controls are available? Two-thirds of parents say they use controls to limit what their children see online, according to Internet Matters, a safety organisation set up by some of the big UK-based internet companies. It has a list of parental controls available and step-by-step guides on how to use them.