The Online Harms White Paper: Duty of care in the context of online harms

In a further instalment of our mini-series on the Online Harms White Paper ("OHWP"), Bryony Hurst examines some of the potential implications of the introduction of the concept of a duty of care in relation to online harms.

Is the concept of ‘duty of care’ a novel one?

The concept of a duty of care is well known in the offline world. So an occupier of property owes a duty of care to its visitors in relation to their safety. However the duty is limited to physical injury, and the law rarely imposes a duty to prevent one visitor injuring another. In the UK online platforms have occasionally had to defend allegations of breach of a safety-related duty of care framed in negligence. Thus some cases have been brought in Northern Ireland against Facebook by minors alleging, among other things, a failure to have more checks on accounts created by children and failures to adequately monitor and remove sexualised/indecent content relating to or created by the child. None of these has produced a court judgment.

Read the full article on MediaWrites.

Latest insights

More Insights
featured image

Mitigating the legal risks of licencing in open-source software and database elements

7 minutes Jun 17 2025

Read More
featured image

Competition law developments in Sport: Key takeaways from Breakfast Roundtable held on 10 June 2025

3 minutes Jun 16 2025

Read More
Curiosity line blue background

SG Trade Marks Fast Programme: Accelerated Examination for Local Applications in Singapore

Jun 12 2025

Read More