Digital Devices: Search Powers at the UK Border

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Laura Farris)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing the debate. I compliment her on her steadfast commitment to the rights of children, and protecting them from sexual exploitation in a range of ways.

I will start with some preliminary observations. First, my hon. Friend presents a compelling case, which I undertake to take back to ministerial colleagues and discuss further. The opportunity represented by inspecting digital devices at the border to increase our ability to tackle and prevent sexual abuse is one that we should take seriously, and it is a key priority for the Government.

I will go through the scale of child sexual abuse, with which she is familiar. The Office for National Statistics estimates that perhaps as many as 7.5% of children in this country will experience some form of sexual abuse before the age of 16. That is the equivalent of just over 3 million people across England and Wales. Reports from the Internet Watch Foundation show that the fastest-growing age group appearing in online child sexual abuse imagery is seven to 10-year-olds, and the prevalence of the most severe forms has more than doubled since 2010. Not only are children being abused, but these moments of their lives are being captured, uploaded on to the internet and essentially frozen in perpetuity. For them, it is a never-ending cycle of abuse from which they will never escape. The files are not even hidden in hard-to-reach parts of the internet; many can be accessed in just three clicks.

My hon. Friend knows how seriously we take child sexual exploitation in this country. We are the Government who implemented the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. It had a historical focus, but it none the less informs our continuing work.

We also recognise the unique vulnerability of children online. We have tackled that to some extent through the Online Safety Act 2023, which brings companies in scope under legal duties to proactively combat the threat of child sexual abuse on their platforms and to identify, report and remove material. We are now working with the independent regulator Ofcom and the National Crime Agency to implement and operationalise those new powers and duties. However, I do not want to duck my hon. Friend’s wider point, which is that the border provides an important opportunity to apprehend and arrest perpetrators. On occasion, there will be important probative material that would lead a member of Border Force to reasonably suspect that an individual has images on their device that suggest serious criminality and that would give an opportunity for interception.

When people enter or leave our country, we can see where they are going and where they have been. We can create risk profiles based on their movements and note when someone has travelled to multiple locations that are well known for child sex tourism. Under our existing customs powers, Border Force can, without the requirement for reasonable suspicion, check the baggage of people entering and leaving the country. That baggage may include obscene or indecent materials. Notable examples include child and baby-like dolls, which sometime have purpose-built internal sex organs. Specialist Border Force teams are trained to capture this key information, seize materials and arrest where appropriate.

[Mrs Latham]

I recognise what the Minister is saying, but the gap exists and Border Force needs these powers. It can search bags and pockets, and strip-search individuals, but it cannot look at their phones or devices. That is where the gap lies and if we do not close it, there will be even more children being abused on a regular basis.

[Laura Farris]

My hon. Friend has accurately pointed out what looks like a lacuna in the law—where physical objects that may be identified in someone’s baggage indicate something, Border Force simply does not have the power to search devices. I have already undertaken to go back to Ministers and discuss that with them.

I reassure my hon. Friend that the Government remain firmly committed to exploring and exercising all potential levers that can be used to safeguard children and bring offenders to justice. We will continue to work across the whole system to ensure that we are doing all we can to tackle this abhorrent crime, and I thank my hon. Friend again for securing this important debate.

Question put and agreed to.