ICO Call For Views on Content Moderation

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is calling for views to support the development of guidance on how data protection law applies to online content moderation processes

Content moderation is the process of analysing content generated by users of online platforms to assess if it meets certain standards or if it is appropriate for a given context.

This content can often include personal data and the analysis may trigger subsequent action to be taken, such as removal of the content, escalation to human moderator or application of a content warning. The ICO has a role to ensure that personal data is processed in compliance with data protection law during content moderation.

The guidance will support organisations to meet both their data protection and online safety responsibilities. It will also support other organisations developing and deploying content moderation in a non-online safety context.

As part of the call for views, the ICO want to understand more about:

how content moderation solutions use people’s personal data
how the solutions are being used or developed more generally
where clarification is needed on the application of the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications to content moderation
what challenges organisations are facing relating to data protection when they deploy content moderation processes

The ICO recognise that content moderation is a developing area and new approaches are continuing to emerge. This call for views will help develop the ICO’s knowledge and ensure that the guidance they provide about meeting data protection expectations is meaningful to organisations.