KCSIE 2026 paragraph 165 groups online safety risks into four areas:
- Content: being exposed to illegal, inappropriate or harmful material, such as pornography, racism, misogyny, self-harm and suicide content, radicalisation, extreme violence, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
- Contact: harmful interaction with other users, or with generative AI tools that simulate it. This includes peer pressure and adults posing as children to groom or exploit.
- Conduct: online behaviour that causes harm or makes it more likely, such as making, sending and receiving explicit images (including AI-generated ones) and online bullying.
- Commerce: online gambling, inappropriate advertising, phishing and financial scams.
KCSIE 2026 updated these definitions (Annex C). The 2026 wording mentions generative AI under both contact and conduct.
You may see the "3 Cs" (content, contact and conduct) in older material. KCSIE uses four.
Paragraph 166 asks governors to make online safety a running theme across the school's safeguarding approach: in policies, the curriculum, staff training, the DSL's role and work with parents. The DSL takes lead responsibility for safeguarding, including online safety. Filtering and monitoring is one part of the response, and so is teaching pupils how to stay safe.