Ofcom Call for Evidence: A Safer Life Online for Women and Girls
Ofcom has published a call for evidence on women and girls' online safety, asking services, civil society, researchers and academics to submit evidence on how experiences of gender-based harm online have changed since the regulator's its "A Safer Life Online for Women and Girls" Guidance was published in November 2025. Responses are due by 5pm on 4 November 2026.
This call for evidence does not propose new regulatory requirements; it is an evidence-gathering exercise to assess the impact and implementation of the Guidance already in force. Evidence gathered will feed into a report Ofcom plans to publish in Q2 2027, assessing what services have (or haven't) done and whether things have actually improved for women and girls.
The four harms in scope
Ofcom's guidance - and this call for evidence - focuses on four, often overlapping, forms of gender-based harm:
Misogynistic abuse and sexual violence: Hateful or abusive content that promotes misogynistic ideas or normalises sexual violence, including content that is algorithmically amplified to young male audiences.
Pile-ons and coordinated harassment: Groups of users coordinating abuse, hate or threats against a woman or girl, including public figures such as journalists and politicians.
Stalking and coercive control: Technology-enabled offences occurring within intimate or family relationships.
Image-based sexual abuse: The non-consensual sharing of intimate images and cyberflashing (a priority offence under the Online Safety Act), alongside self-generated indecent imagery involving children.
What Ofcom is asking?
The call for evidence is built around three questions:
What actions are services taking? Evidence on the steps providers have implemented since November 2025 — whether drawn from Ofcom's suggested good practice or alternative approaches — and any data on their effectiveness.
What is different for women and girls online? Evidence on women and girls' own experiences of these harms, how their use of services has changed, how other users' behaviour towards them has shifted, and whether any of this correlates with action taken by providers.
Are online harms changing for women and girls? New evidence on the prevalence, nature and severity of these harms, and which services they are occurring on.
Ofcom is clear that respondents do not need to answer every question - short submissions on a single point are welcome. Responses can be submitted via Ofcom's webform, by email to womenandgirlscfe@ofcom.org.uk, by post, or as an audio recording or British Sign Language video (up to five minutes).
What else is in train
The call for evidence sits alongside related regulatory activity. Ofcom has been deploying hash-matching technology to detect intimate image abuse and has already opened enforcement investigations into sexualised imagery and image-based sexual abuse, including action against “nudification” sites. Separately, the Crime and Policing Act 2026 will introduce a duty on services to remove non-consensual intimate imagery within 48 hours; Ofcom expects to consult on this and update its policy roadmap by the end of the year.
Why this matters for members
The evidence Ofcom gathers here will directly shape its Q2 2027 assessment of industry progress - and, by its own description, will “shine a light on where more could be done.” That makes this an important opportunity for members to set out the safety-by-design work already under way, and to help ensure Ofcom's understanding of prevalence and effectiveness is built on a representative evidence base.
If you would like to feed in views or discuss the implications for your business, please get in touch with Samiah Anderson, Head of Digital Regulation:
