Online Safety Bill: Government Amendments at Lords Committee Stage

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Michelle Donelan)]

I am repeating the following written ministerial statement made today in the other place by the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my noble Friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay:

Following commitments made in the House of Commons, His Majesty’s Government has tabled a number of amendments to the Online Safety Bill. These will improve the regulatory framework by strengthening protections for internet users, particularly children, reflecting the Bill’s primary objective of keeping children safe online.

Senior management liability

These amendments will strengthen the accountability of online services by making providers and senior managers criminally liable for failures to comply with steps set out in a confirmation decision, when those steps relate to specific child safety duties. As promised in the House of Commons, we based our approach on provisions in the Irish Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022, which introduced individual criminal liability for failure to comply with a notice to end contravention. The offence will be punishable with up to two years’ imprisonment. In conjunction with the existing clause 178, liability of corporate officers for offences, this fulfils the commitment made in the House of Commons to create a new offence that captures instances where senior managers, or those purporting to act in that capacity, have consented to or connived in ignoring enforceable requirements, risking serious harm to children.

I would like to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) for all of their hard work and dedication in this area. The tabled amendment will provide the legal certainty needed for the offence to act as an effective deterrent, and to be prosecuted effectively.

Recognised news publisher content—“taking action”

This amendment has been tabled to clarify that category 1 services need to notify recognised news publishers and offer a right of appeal before action is taken against their content for a suspected breach of terms of service, and not in relation to routine or personalised content curation. This amendment will also ensure that platforms are not prevented from displaying warning labels on content encountered by children.

Duty to publish a summary of illegal and child safety risk assessments

These amendments will require the providers of the largest services to publish summaries of their risk assessments for illegal content and content that is harmful to children. These platforms must also supply Ofcom with records of those risk assessments. These amendments will increase the level of transparency regarding these platforms’ approaches to safety, and the risk of harm on their services. This will empower parents and other internet users to make informed decisions when choosing whether and how to use them.

Statutory consultees: victims’, domestic abuse, and children’s commissioners

These amendments to the Bill name the victims’, domestic abuse and children’s commissioners as statutory consultees for Ofcom. Ofcom will be required to consult each Commissioner in the course of preparing a draft code. This will ensure that the voices of children and victims of abuse—including victims of violence against women and girls—are properly considered during implementation of the framework.

Priority offences

These amendments seek to add priority offences to strengthen the Bill’s illegal content duties. Providers will be required proactively to tackle content and activity amounting to these offences.

First, we are seeking to add the controlling or coercive behaviour offence. This will add to the existing protections in the Bill for women and girls, to ensure providers design and operate their services to protect women and girls from this behaviour when it occurs on their platforms.

Secondly—and with thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for raising this important issue—we are adding new offences relating to illegal immigration and modern slavery, to ensure that the Bill does more to prevent services being used to facilitate these crimes.

The Government are also tabling a technical amendment to add the foreign interference offence being introduced by the National Security Bill to the list of priority offences in schedule 7. This amendment will ensure that the Online Safety Bill requires social media firms to identify and root out state-backed disinformation. This provision was originally included in the National Security Bill, but as that is likely to receive Royal Assent before the Online Safety Bill the provision will instead be included in the Online Safety Bill to ensure clarity of legislation.

Recognised news publisher definitions (sanctioned entities)

This amendment will ensure that any entity that is designated for the purposes of sanctions regulations does not qualify as a “recognised news publisher” under the Bill, and therefore will not benefit from the protections reserved for such publishers.

The Government are also tabling a number of technical amendments to the Bill. These amendments will resolve technical drafting issues, provide further legal clarity for business, and ensure that the Bill is as effective as possible. These include:

Communications offences

This amendment extends the false and threatening communications offences, which currently apply only to England and Wales, to Northern Ireland. In the absence of an Executive in Northern Ireland, the process for securing legislative consent for this extension cannot be commenced.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is in regular contact with the Northern Ireland civil service, who are content that the Department proceed without the approval of the Executive. Following engagement with the UK Government, the Scottish Government have decided not to introduce these offences at this time.

Permissive extent

This amendment introduces a permissive extent clause that will allow the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Isle of Man to extend the provisions of the Bill to Guernsey or the Isle of Man in the future.

Funding changes

This amendment comprises small, technical changes to the Bill to facilitate the structure of funding for the regime, with fees expected to be charged from the financial year 2025-26 or later. As previously announced, Ofcom will be expected to recover the initial costs of setting up the regulatory regime and meet their ongoing costs by charging fees to regulated services with revenue at or above a set threshold.

Proactive technology

This amendment clarifies that Ofcom can only recommend or require the use of content moderation technology for the illegal content, children’s safety, and fraudulent advertising duties. This is in line with existing policy to ensure that there are strong safeguards for freedom of expression and privacy. This does not affect the tech-neutral nature of the Bill, and Ofcom will be able to recommend a range of technologies that companies can use to fulfil their duties.

The amendments detailed in this statement will ensure that the Online Safety Bill presents the right balance in its provisions for the safety of children and adults online, while ensuring that the regime remains proportionate and future-proof.

[HCWS726]