No system catches everything

The Online Safety Act has changed things. Tens of millions of age checks now happen that did not happen two years ago, and a lot of harmful material is harder to reach than it was.

But a check is not a wall. Some of it can be got around, some sites sit outside the rules altogether, and the protections were built mainly with children in mind, which leaves vulnerable adults with very little.

So some of this is still reachable, often by the people we would most want it kept from, and often by people who are looking rather than stumbling across it.

The one protection that goes wherever a person goes, on any device, at any hour, is what they know and who they can turn to. If that is you, or someone you love, the numbers below matter more than anything else on this site.