Websites for children must register their moderators, says new law

Organisations with interactive websites likely to be used mainly by children must ensure that staff moderating the sites are not barred from working with children from October.

It will be a criminal offence for an organisation to knowingly employ a barred person for a regulated role, such as moderating children's sites. The Government is changing the way that it controls who has access to children and vulnerable adults and new laws take effect on 12th October. Those make the moderation of online services such as bulletin boards a regulated activity.

That means that anyone on the list of people banned from working with children will also be banned from moderating online services that are likely to be accessed and used by children. The same is true of people on the list relating to vulnerable adults in connection with online services likely to be used by vulnerable adults.

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act was introduced in 2006 and has been modified by a commencement order which expands it to include some online services as regulated activities, meaning that they cannot be performed by anyone on the list of banned people.The new law includes as a regulated activity "moderating a public interactive communication service which is likely to be used wholly or mainly by children".

This is from Out-law.com. Read more here http://www.out-law.com/page-9762