UK High Court dismisses tech giants' challenge against Ofcom data requests

On October 30, the UK High Court dismissed a collective legal challenge brought by Meta, WhatsApp, X, and TikTok against the communications regulator, Ofcom. The ruling affirms that the regulator acted within its authority when issuing notices requiring the companies to provide granular data on content moderation and user safety practices.

This decision marks the first judicial review of Ofcom’s information-gathering powers under the Online Safety Act 2023. The platforms had argued that the requests were unlawful, lacked sufficient justification, and imposed an excessive financial and operational burden on their organizations. The companies maintained that the demands bypassed existing transparency reporting mechanisms.

In their judgment, Lord Justice Singh and Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled that the regulator’s data collection serves a distinct purpose from public transparency disclosures and is necessary for monitoring safety risks. The court found that while compliance is costly, the companies failed to provide sufficient evidence demonstrating that these specific requests were disproportionate compared to their broader regulatory obligations.

The ruling leaves the existing information requests in place, with deadlines extending through March 2027. Non-compliance could result in penalties of up to £18 million or 10 percent of a company’s global annual turnover.