About us

Leadership

The OSA Network is led by Maeve Walsh and Professor Lorna Woods OBE and aims to keep all those with an interest in the successful implementation of the Online Safety Act engaged and connected while the regulator, Ofcom, designs and consults on the detail of the regime and the Government considers related policy developments and the next phase of legislative design.


Our History and Impact

The Network has evolved from the successful work that Lorna and Maeve, along with William Perrin OBE, carried out at Carnegie UK during the passage of the Online Safety Bill. Woods and Perrin’s concept of a statutory duty of care for online harm reduction influenced the then Government’s policy thinking on online safety regulation, was reflected in the Online Harms White Paper of 2019 and underpins the regulatory regime now in force under the OSA 2023.

The Carnegie team’s analysis and convening supported numerous successful civil society campaigns to amend the draft legislation, such as the inclusion of measures to address fraud and fraudulent advertising in the Bill and the addition of guidance to protect women and girls. Woods, Perrin and Walsh’s work to support Parliamentarians on a cross-party basis over the long passage of the legislation was recognised by Peers in the House of Lords.


Lord Stevenson (Labour): "I think all of us involved in the Bill have benefited from the expertise and knowledge of the Carnegie UK Trust, led on this occasion by one of its trustees, William Perrin, who, with Professor Lorna Woods, was key to the initial development of the duty of care approach, and who, together with Maeve Walsh and others from the Carnegie team, supplied high-quality briefings and advice as we went through the various stages." (Hansard 6 September 2023, col 466)

Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat): "I also—finally, noble Lords will be pleased to hear—pay my own tribute to Carnegie UK, especially Will Perrin, Maeve Walsh and Professor Lorna Woods, for having the vision five years ago as to what was possible around the construction of a duty of care and for being by our side throughout the creation of this Bill." (Hansard 6 September 2023, col 489)


Professor Woods’ work has also been instrumental in influencing international legislative developments, with the “duty of care” and a systemic, risk-based approach to online safety regulation underpinning regulatory models and policy debates in Europe, Australia, Canada, Brazil and many US states.


Our Approach


The coalition-building carried out by the Carnegie UK team from the earliest days of the Online Safety Bill’s development has laid the foundation for the OSA Network today and our way of working remains the same as it did then: sharing information, making connections and providing expert advice to all those who share our objective of effective and robust regulation of online platforms to protect UK users from online harms.


Further Reading
You can access the Carnegie UK analysis and publications that shaped the Online Safety Act here and read more about Lorna and Maeve’s achievements at the links below:

Learn more about our experienced team of subject matter experts.

Maeve Walsh

OSA Network Director

Maeve Walsh is an experienced policymaker and government relations expert who has worked in the UK Government and not-for-profit sector and was previously an Associate with Carnegie UK.

During a 17-year career in Whitehall, she held senior roles in central Departments including Cabinet Office, No10, the Department of Health and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, where she led the team responsible for delivering the UK Digital Strategy. Since then, she has worked as a policy and advocacy consultant and advisor to a variety of organizations on digital and data policy.

As an Associate with Carnegie UK between 2018-2023, she worked with Professor Lorna Woods and William Perrin on their online harm reduction project, helping to directly influence the design and development of the Online Safety Bill, convening a large network of civil society campaigners and advocates, advising Parliamentarians on all sides of the House, and securing a number of significant concessions from the Government, including on fraud, scam ads and protections for women and girls.

She is a Trustee at the Connection at St-Martins-in-the-Field, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and has served as a parent governor at her children’s primary school.

Read more here

Lorna Woods

Professor of Internet Law, Essex University

Lorna Woods is a professor in the Law School at Essex University and a member of the Human Rights Centre there. She received an OBE for her influential work at Carnegie UK that underpinned the UK government’s Online Safety Act.

Formerly a practising solicitor in a technology, media and telecommunications practice, she advised on contractual and regulatory aspects of the then nascent electronic communications and information technology industries (including data protection). While recent work has focused on the regulation of social media, her expertise covers a broader field, including ‘Social Media Jurisprudence - The European Court of Human Rights’, ‘Executive Accountability and National Security’ and ‘Competition Law and Telecommunications’. She is currently editing a commentary on the Digital Services Act.

In addition to academic research, she has been invited to give oral evidence to the UK Parliament on a number of issues, for example the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications inquiry into internet regulation, the Home Affairs Committee on post-Brexit Law Enforcement cooperation (data protection issues), APPG on the Rule of Law ‘The Data Protection Bill: What Do Rule of Law Principles Mean for AI and Data Processing?’, the Science and Technology Select Committee in respect of its enquiry into Big Data.

Professor Woods is a member of the ESRC peer review college, a senior associate research fellow at the Information Law and Policy Centre, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London and a fellow of the Royal Society for Arts. She is a member of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) National User Group and she was also a member of the IMPRESS Code Committee (2015-2020).

Read more here
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