Online Harms White Paper

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am very glad to be taking part in this debate on a topic that I have raised in this House on numerous occasions. As the number of people who use the internet and the range of things they use it for expand, we all face new challenges in balancing the good with the potentially harmful. I commend the Government and the Ministers involved in this for rising to the challenge.

The well-being of our children and young people online is at the forefront of this document and is something I have worked at and with, in different ways, over a number of years. I very much welcome the Government’s reiteration of their commitment,

“to support parents in preventing and dealing with online harms”.

I am particularly pleased that, since the publication of the White Paper, the Government have announced that the age verification of pornographic websites will finally come into effect on 15 July. I and other noble Lords will be monitoring the launch and the effect of this closely. I welcome, too, the intention to bring in a duty of care for social media companies. I shall follow the detail of this debate with interest as well, especially the role of the proposed new regulator, which will issue codes of practice on preventing children accessing inappropriate content, including codes on:

“Steps companies should take to ensure children are unable to access inappropriate content, including guidance on age verification, content warnings and measures to filter and block inappropriate content”.


I have also been active in supporting family-friendly filtering by mobile phone operators and internet service providers and am concerned to read the report, Collateral Damage in the War Against Online Harms, published last week by Top10VPN and the Open Rights Group, suggesting that these filters are potentially harmful rather than advantageous. The Minister and I have had discussions about this over the years. I have never suggested that filtering is a panacea for parents; it is merely one tool in their toolbox for supporting their children as they grow up in this increasingly digital world. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to this report.

The White Paper sets out the Government’s intention for a new online media literacy strategy. I have always argued for educating the public on the options before them to manage their technology use, and especially to help equip parents to raise their children in an increasingly digital world. I welcome the inclusion within the remit of the strategy of:

“Developing media literacy approaches to tackling violence against women and girls online”.


I hope the Minister, will be able to expand on the plans in this area and how they tie in with the commitment in the Ending Violence against Women and Girls—2016 - 2020—Strategy Refresh, that the Government are,

“working to better understand whether links exist between consumption of online pornography and harmful attitudes towards women”,

and that the Government will,

“commission research in order to better understand the links between consuming pornography and attitudes to women and girls more broadly”.

I would be grateful if the Minister would give us an update on how these projects are progressing and when he expects the research to be completed.

I recognise that this White Paper cannot cover all online harms and does not intend to do so. The Minister made that clear in the Statement on 8 April. However, given the focus of the paper on social media companies and child sexual abuse, I was expecting it to cover two areas which are missing. I was hoping he would have addressed some of the issues that were raised in this House and the other place about the limitations of the extent of the Digital Economy Act 2017. When we debated the regulations that will determine which websites will be required to have age verification, on December 11 last year, there was considerable comment about the current exclusion of social media websites. The Minister said that this issue might be addressed by the White Paper: sadly, it is not. It would be helpful to understand the Government’s decision not to include social media within age verification when so much of the White Paper is about the responsibilities of social media, and children accessing pornography is one of the harms in the scope of the White Paper.

During the debate on the regulations, I also raised my concerns that the final version of the Digital Economy Act left a significant loophole with respect to non-photographic and animated child sex abuse images. This means that the age-verification regulator cannot ask internet service providers to block websites that contain these images. The same point was made in the other place, to which the Minister, Margot James MP, said:

“That strikes me as a grotesque loophole”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/12/18; col. 612.]


I am very pleased that, since the debates at the end of last year, the Internet Watch Foundation has adopted a new non-photographic images policy and URL block list, so that websites that contain these images can be blocked by IWF members. It allows for network blocking of non-photographic images to be applied to filtering solutions, and it can prevent pages containing non-photographic images being shown in online search engine results. In 2017, 3,471 reports of alleged non-photographic images of child sexual abuse were made to the IWF; the figure for 2018 was double that, at 7,091 alleged reports. The new IWF policy was introduced only in February, so it is early days to see whether this will be a success. The IWF is unable to remove content unless that content originates in the UK, which of course is rare. The IWF offers this list on a voluntary basis, not a statutory basis as would occur under the Digital Economy Act. Can the Minister please keep the House informed about the success of the new policy and, if necessary, address the loopholes in the legislative proposal arising from this White Paper?

We are debating a document that is clearly a step in the right direction, and I am sure that all noble Lords certainly congratulate the Government on that. I also very much look forward to hearing the Minister address some of the many points raised by other Members, both before I spoke and following me.

Children and Young People: Digital Technology

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for securing this important debate, and for her excellent speech.

Last month we debated the Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2018, which will see commercial pornographic websites placed behind age verification. I very much welcome that decision and ask the Minister to give the House an update on its “go live” day.

I fear, however, that significant problems remain in relation to child access to adult content, as a number of concerns have been raised about the exclusion of social media from the scope of the regulations. Indeed, in November the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, noted that the Digital Economy Act 2017, while seeking,

“to restrict children’s access to pornography based on scale … failed to bring platforms such as Twitter within scope, despite 500,000 pornographic images being posted daily”.—[Official Report, 12/11/18; col 1766.]

Clearly this is a subject that needs to be kept under review, and I hope that the Government will address it in the online harms White Paper.

I have been a consistent supporter of parental filters for online services. We discussed this subject in detail during the passage of the Digital Economy Bill in 2017, but I would be grateful if the Minister updated the House on what both large and, crucially, small ISPs are doing about online filtering. The most recent Ofcom report on children’s and parents’ media use and attitudes, published in 2017, says that 39% of three and four year-olds use home network-level filters, as do 37% of five to 15 year-olds. Although this is an increase on previous years, it is still surprising to me that more parents do not use that option. Does the Minister have any new data on the use of filters?

As I said last month, I remain concerned about online gambling. We know that, notwithstanding the Gambling Act, young people gamble online. I very much welcome the Gambling Commission’s efforts to ensure stricter age-verification checks for those seeking to gamble online or who play free-to-play online gambling games. I very much hope that the new licensing conditions proposed in the recent consultation on proposals to strengthen age and identity verification for online gambling will come into effect soon.

I am very concerned to note that in last year’s report on young people’s gambling, 13% of 11 to 16 year-olds had played gambling-like games online, for free and without prizes. Some 40% of those who played online gambling-style games played these before gambling for money. I also note with great concern that information about gambling is easily accessed by young people: 59% have seen gambling advertisements on social media, more than one in 10 follow gambling companies on social media, and they are three times more likely to spend money on gambling. Of those who have ever played online gambling-style games, 24% follow gambling companies online. We are surrounding our young people with messages about gambling from a young age. If we are serious about living up to the licensing conditions in Section 1 of the Gambling Act, I do not believe it appropriate to passively accept this situation.

Lastly, I am concerned that 31% of 11 to 16 year-olds have bought so-called loot boxes, which, as has already been mentioned, allow for in-game purchases. In the 2017 Ofcom report, 30% of parents of five to 15 year-olds were concerned about the pressure on their child to make in-game purchases, and they were right to be so. There is a particular concern about loot boxes, also known as mystery boxes because the purchaser does not know what is in the box—it is an act of chance. A recent academic paper states that,

“loot-box systems share important structural and psychological similarities with gambling”.

The Gambling Commission itself has acknowledged that there is a blurring around the edges of gaming and gambling.

In this context, and again mindful of our obligations under Section 1 of the Gambling Act, I believe that the time has come for the Government to take robust steps to protect children and young people from loot boxes. The DCMS Select Committee in the other place is looking into this issue. I shall read its report with interest, and I sincerely hope we are going to hear more from the Gambling Commission about how many young people are betting on e-sports—that is, competitive video gaming—and whether they are betting with cash or with items won or purchased while playing video games. Above all, we need to ensure that young people do not get drawn into gambling unwittingly.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, we are halfway through this important debate and we are very tight for time. I ask Peers to adhere to the four-minute time limit.

Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2018

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

I welcome the regulations and the guidance, as far as they go, but I am sure there are related issues to which we will need to return in due course.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister has carefully considered the definition of “commercial pornography”, and I am grateful that he has engaged with my comments on previous drafts of the regulations and that we have met in person to discuss these. Further to those conversations, I am happy to say that I support the regulations and the guidance, and certainly encourage other noble Lords to do the same, although I have a number of concerns I would like to highlight.

First, I note that it has taken more than 18 months since Third Reading to get to the point where this House and the other place are considering the regulations to determine what is deemed commercial pornography and the regulator’s guidance on age verification. I hope the Minister can assure us that the full implementation of age verification for pornographic websites is now very close. Indeed, it would be even better if he could tell the House when he expects it to be operational.

Secondly, I note that in its report on the Bill, Sub-Committee B of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said that the measures available to the BBFC, as the age-verification regulator, should be applied “fairly and transparently”. I certainly hope that they will be. To this end, I ask the Minister to place a letter in the Library nine months after age verification goes live, with an update on the number of websites with AV in place and how many enforcement actions have taken place. I hope that that will be possible.

Thirdly, I cannot address the regulations and guidance that will help give effect to Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act without reflecting on the fact that, thanks to amendments introduced by your Lordships’ House, Part 3 will no longer address some very serious problems as effectively as it would have done. When Part 3, as amended, is implemented, there will be nothing in it to prevent non-photographic and animated child sex abuse images, which are illegal to possess under Section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, being accessed behind age verification. This is a serious problem. In 2017, 3,471 reports of alleged non-photographic images of child sexual abuse were made to the Internet Watch Foundation, but since none of these images was hosted in the UK, it was unable to act.

Of course I appreciate that technically the amendments to the Digital Economy Bill, which removed from the regulator the power to take action against such material when it is behind age verification, did not have the effect of legalising possession of this material. The 2009 Act remains in place. However, as virtually all this material is beamed into the UK from other jurisdictions, the arrival of the Digital Economy Bill in your Lordships’ House meant that for the first time we had a credible means of enforcing that law online. There is no need for a regulator to be in the same jurisdiction as a website that it determines to block.

As I said at the time, greeting the first really credible means of enforcing that law online by removing the relevant enforcement mechanism from key parts of the Bill inevitably called into question our commitment to the law. I appreciate that there is arguably a mechanism for trying to enforce the law: the National Crime Agency can work with overseas agencies if websites with this material are identified. However, the mechanism is slow and expensive, and it remains unclear how it can have any effect if the domestic laws of the countries in question permit non-photographic child sex abuse images. To this extent, it was no surprise to me that in response to a Written Parliamentary Question in September 2018, the Government were unable to say whether the NCA had taken action against any websites, or whether any sites had been removed by overseas jurisdictions. ComRes polling published in the summer shows that 71% of MPs think that the regulator should be empowered to block these sites. Only 5% disagree.

The other loophole, of course, relates to all but the most extreme forms of violent pornography. Given that under the Video Recordings Act 1984 it is not legal to supply this material, it was entirely proper that the Digital Economy Bill, as it entered your Lordships’ House, did not accommodate such material. However, amendments were introduced in this House to allow it behind age verification. As I observed at the time, this sent out the message loud and clear that violence against women—unless it is “grotesque”, to quote the Minister on Report, at col. 1093—is, in some senses, acceptable.

My concerns about the impact of such material remain and have been mirrored by those of the Women and Equalities Select Committee in its report, which I referred to earlier. Of great importance, it states:

“There is significant research suggesting that there is a relationship between the consumption of pornography and sexist attitudes and sexually aggressive behaviour, including violence. The Government’s approach to pornography is not consistent: it restricts adults’ access to offline pornography to licensed premises and is introducing age-verification of commercial pornography online to prevent children’s exposure to it, but it has no plans to address adult men’s use of mainstream online pornography”.


I appreciate that we cannot deal with these problems today. The Government must, however, urgently prioritise how to address them. They could deal with the matter very quickly if they were to make time for my very short two-clause Digital Economy Act amendment Bill, which addresses the matter in full. With these caveats, I warmly welcome the regulations and the guidance.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s decision finally to lay this guidance and the regulations for the House’s approval. It has not come a moment too soon. As the Minister knows, I have been concerned for some time that we should progress implementation of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act and stop dragging our feet while harm is being done to our children. Almost every week, I hear of cases of children as young as four experiencing the traumatic horror of accidentally discovering pornographic material online. This can be devastating for young minds, causing them anxiety and depression.

This is ground-breaking child protection legislation and we should be proud, because it will be the first of its kind in the world. The UK is leading the way in online safety and setting an example for other countries that are looking to introduce similar controls. We can demonstrate that it is possible to regulate the internet to ensure that children can be protected from online pornographic material that we would never let them near in the offline world.

There is an abundance of evidence showing how harmful this material can be and, significantly, that children often do not seek it out but stumble across it. Research by the NSPCC found that children are as likely to stumble across pornography by accident as to search for it deliberately. Also significantly, the NSPCC reports that children themselves support age verification. Eighty per cent of young people felt that age verification is needed for sites that contain adult content.

The age-verification regulator, the British Board of Film Classification, has been working on implementing the legislation for a number of months and has kept me briefed on its progress. I am confident that it will successfully deliver age verification in the UK to prevent children stumbling across and accessing pornography. Its guidance sets out principle-based standards which will encourage even more innovation and allow for new means of age-verifying consumers in the future. This is important because if this regime is to work, age verification needs to be robust and privacy must be protected.

My concern, as always, is with child protection, but I recognise the need to ensure that this regime is seamless enough to prevent commercial incentives to avoid compliance. For this reason, I am pleased that the BBFC has said in the annex to the guidance that it intends to introduce a voluntary scheme to bring in a higher privacy standard than the GDPR—which is already of a high standard.

I would like the Minister to reassure us that this scheme will be in place shortly and that the Government will fully support it. It is most important that, as the age-verification regulator, the BBFC will have a range of enforcement powers, including requesting ancillary service providers and payment service providers to withdraw their services to non-compliant websites, and instructing internet service providers to block them. These powers should be highly effective in achieving the legislation’s objectives and should be used as swiftly as possible to encourage compliance. I ask the Minister: how will the Government encourage ancillary service providers, who can only be “requested” to take action, to co-operate fully with the BBFC? I have been told by the BBFC that PayPal, Visa and MasterCard have already indicated that they will withdraw services where there is non-compliance. I also welcome the support that I understand will be given by the ISPs and mobile network operators. Their role will be crucial.

Historic Cathedrals

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I would of course be delighted to see at least one of them. I accept what the right reverend Prelate said. We look carefully at these issues and understand that it would be nice to have an endowment fund. As I said, this is really a matter for the Chancellor, and my noble friend Lord Cormack, along with, I believe, the deans of several cathedrals, has been to see the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to talk about this. I believe that that was one of the draft recommendations of a Cathedrals Working Group report, which has not yet been agreed by the Church.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, quite apart from their historic role in this country, cathedrals play a huge role in the community, with all sorts of activities being conducted within their premises? Under those circumstances, surely it is important that the Government consider widening the scope of the finance that cathedrals have at their disposal.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree that cathedrals can be used for wider civic events and for things that are not directly concerned with the religion that they deal with. That is yet another reason to support them—and, clearly, the Government have spent many tens of millions of pounds doing just that. I do not think that there is any need for me to reinforce the desire of the Government to support these buildings. We accept that, for aesthetic and many other reasons, they are worthy of support.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

4: Clause 124, page 69, line 7, at end insert—
““children” means people under the age of 18;”

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak to my Amendment 4, which I regard as small but important for the purposes of clarification.

Last month, there was universal support from your Lordships when my noble friend Lady Kidron introduced her excellent amendment on the age-appropriate design code, which is now the subject of Clause 124. At the time, I raised a question about the intention regarding the scope of the amendment, as there is no definition of “children” either in the amendment or in the Bill. I said that, as the amendment refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,

“I assume that the intention is that the age-appropriate design code of practice will cover all children up to the age of 18”.—[Official Report, 11/12/17; col. 1430.]

During the debate, my noble friend Lady Kidron said:

“The code created by the amendment will apply to all services,


‘likely to be accessed by children’,

irrespective of age and of whether consent has been asked for. This particular aspect of the amendment could not have been achieved without the help of the Government. In my view it is to their great credit that they agreed to extend age-appropriate standards to all children”.—[Official Report, 11/12/17; col. 1427.]

I was reassured by this statement about the intent of the clause but I remain concerned that there is no explicit definition in the Bill to indicate that we are indeed talking about any person under the age of 18, especially as the reference to the requirement to engage with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Clause 124(4) is an obligation only to “have regard to”.

The truth is that there is no clear or consistent reference to a child or children in the Data Protection Bill. Clause 9 defines the right of a child to consent to their data’s use and says that this right starts at 13. Clause 201 covers children in Scotland, suggesting that there the right commences at the age of 12. These different approaches open up the door for arguments about the age at which the rights conferred by Clause 124 are operational for children. I would hate us to find ourselves in a position where, once this Bill was passed, a debate began about the ages at which the benefits of Clause 124 applied to children. This could result in a narrowing of the definition of children benefiting from Clause 124 so that it related only to some people under 18, rather than to all those under 18, on account of the Bill not being clear.

Years of experience have taught me that it is best to be crystal clear about what we are talking about, and that is why I have tabled this amendment. If the Government do not think it necessary, I hope the Minister will clearly state in his reply that the Government intend that Clause 124 should indeed relate to all persons under the age of 18. I look forward to hearing what he has to say. I beg to move.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing this issue to the attention of the House. It is my understanding that, by invoking the UNCRC, we are talking about children being people under the age of 18. I would very much welcome the Minister’s saying that that extends beyond Clause 124, which we brought forward, to everywhere in the Bill that “children” is mentioned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken, particularly the Minister for his considerate reply, which he will appreciate I nevertheless find somewhat disappointing. I hope that when the Data Protection Bill reaches the other place the issue will be debated again—and even that the Minister might by then have changed his mind. Nevertheless, in the meantime clearly I must do as requested. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.

Social Media: News

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I too warmly congratulate my noble friend Lady Kidron on this important debate and on the way she opened it.

I fully acknowledge the considerable benefits of social media and online platforms, but will home in on their role as publishers of online gambling opportunities and pornography and the risks this poses to 11-16 year-olds. A Gambling Commission report published just last month showed that in 2017, 3% of 11-16 year-olds spent their own money on online gambling. This is illegal and should have been prevented by robust age verification checks. I note that 3% also gambled in 2016—thus there was no improvement between 2016 and 2017—and therefore ask the Minister what the Government and the Gambling Commission are doing to address this in 2018. The report also shows that in 2017, 11% of 11 to 16 year-olds played gambling-style social games, which are often free to play and offer no cash prizes, with 73% of these played via apps on smartphones and tablets and 28% playing via Facebook.

Any thought that the industry might get its own house in order voluntarily seems highly questionable given that revelations in the Times that online gambling opportunities were being marketed with children’s cartoons in October have now been followed by revelations in the Guardian just after Christmas about the role of Scientific Games. The article stated:

“Scientific Games, a US firm that has provided FOBTs to Ladbrokes and casino games for several gambling websites, makes a variety of these ‘social games’ available as apps on Facebook. One of its apps features the children’s cartoon characters The Flintstones, while another is themed around the Rapunzel fairytale”.


It is of great concern to me that these apps are so easily accessible to children. The article quoted Mark Griffiths, a professor of behavioural addiction at Nottingham Trent University, saying that social games were the “number one risk factor” for children becoming problem gamblers, even if hosted on Facebook rather than a gambling site. Despite this fact, however, gambling games that do not involve money do not meet the definition of gambling in the 2005 Act, and they are not regulated by the Gambling Commission.

I understand that these games may be targeted at those legally able to gamble, but they clearly appeal to children. Indeed, the press release accompanying the Gambling Commission’s report last month said that,

“new technology is providing children with opportunities to experience gambling behaviours through products, such as free-to-play casino games, social media or within some computer games, which do not have the same level of protections or responsible gambling messages as regulated gambling products”.

In this context I ask the Minister, is it not now necessary to amend the Gambling Act 2005 to broaden the remit of the Gambling Commission to deal with gambling games when no money is involved?

Thirdly, social media acts as an advertising forum for gambling adverts for young people. The majority—70%—of 11 to 16 year-olds have seen gambling advertisements on social media, and one in 10—10%—of 11 to 16 year-olds follows gambling companies on social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, so are receiving positive messages about gambling via these sites.

Finally, I highlight the role of social media and online platforms in the publication of pornography which is illegal but does not meet the narrow definition of extreme pornography and is published on a social media site or online platforms, most of the content of which is non-pornographic. Last April the Times reported that non-photographic child sex abuse images were being published on Facebook without age verification. Just a couple of weeks ago, moreover, another Times article showed that paedophiles were using YouTube as a “shop window” to showcase abused children. On that point, when the age verification regulator starts its work in May, will it be able to take action against this illegal content, or will the fact that Facebook and YouTube are not primarily for conveying pornography make it powerless to act? The regulator is powerless to act in this situation, so what are the Government going to do to address this problem with social media and online platforms?

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I remind your Lordships of my register of interests in the digital space, not least as the ex-chief executive of TalkTalk and trustee of Doteveryone. I add my thanks to those of my noble friend Lady Kidron. I also thank her for her tireless campaigning on behalf of children, and the energy, drive and commitment that she has shown in bringing all of us on this journey. We definitely would not be here today without her. I also thank my noble friend the Minister and the ministerial team both here and in the other place and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. This is genuinely a team effort, both within this House and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, set out, among all the charities and organisations which work tirelessly to ensure that we protect the vulnerable in the digital world—most importantly in the case we are discussing today, our children.

A code of practice for age-appropriate design for digital services is a hugely important step. Every time I speak in this House I talk about how much I believe that the digital world is a force for good and of the opportunity it presents us, particularly as an open country which embraces new technology. We have a history of not just embracing new technology but of protecting the vulnerable as we do so. This amendment is an important landmark in that journey for the digital world as we need the digital space to be civilised, every bit as civilised as the physical world, and we struggle in debating how we ensure that the physical world is civilised.

Data is at the core of digital and therefore this amendment is at the core of building a civilised digital society as it recognises that children’s data needs must be addressed and that children need to have special protections in the digital world, just as they do in the physical world. We are taking a hugely important moral as well as legal step in our digital journey. However, a code of practice will make a difference only if it changes behaviours, and, in this case, changes the behaviours of very big and very small digital service providers. Sadly, we are debating this issue because self-regulation is not working. I certainly think it is sad that that is the case. I very much hope that this amendment will start to drive the right behaviours but it will do so only if has teeth. Therefore, when my noble friend the Minister replies, I would be interested to hear his interpretation of the powers that this amendment would give the Information Commissioner. We need it to give her position teeth. We need to ensure that the ICO has sufficient resources to conduct the consultation properly in a reasonable period of time to provide commercial businesses big and small with sufficient time to enable them to implement this measure for children. A code will be effective only if tech companies subsequently change their behaviour.

I still very much hope that this debate and the amendment itself demonstrate to technology companies big and small our commitment as a country to protect our children online, and our expectation that all businesses will play their part. I still firmly believe that the free market works in most cases. I hope that simply by setting this process in train, technology companies will start to implement some of the basic protections for children that we discussed in Committee. It will be so much easier for the ICO to implement these standards if many of the basic protections are already in place but, much more importantly, our children would be safer from tomorrow rather than in 18 months’ or two years’ time. I am delighted to see this amendment supported on all sides of the House.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am glad to support Amendment 7 and the related amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Kidron. Like others, I commend her for her perseverance and commitment in ensuring that we see children flourish as they grow from the early years of digital interaction to adulthood.

In 2010, the annual Ofcom media report made no mention of tablet computers. In 2017, 21% of three year-olds have their own tablet. This is the world in which our children are growing up. We use the global term “children” easily, which under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child means a person under the age of 18. As those years encompass such diverse development, the Information Commissioner has a considerable challenge ahead to identify design suitable to cover all those needs. I for one wish her well.

As I have made clear on many occasions, I am for positive use of the internet by children, and for resources which help parents raise their children in the digital age. With that preface in mind, I would like to ask some questions about these amendments to clarify the intentions and the way forward.

First, during the debates we have had on Clause 8, we have talked about children aged between 13 and 16. Amendment 109 refers to a code being developed for sites,

“which are likely to be accessed by children”.

I hope that my noble friend and the Minister will clarify which age group we are referring to, since there is no definition of children in the Bill but the terms “child” and “children” are used in the headings of Clauses 8 and 191, where the relevant age of the child is 13 and 12 respectively. As Amendment 109 refers to the UNCRC, I assume that the intention is that the age-appropriate design code of practice will cover all children up to the age of 18. However, it would be very helpful for a definition of children to be included in the relevant clauses so that there is no uncertainty.

Secondly, I hope that there will be clarification of which sites will fall within the requirements of the code. Clearly, the expectation is that the code will go beyond sites which would require the consent of children, but will it apply only to sites whose primary intention is to reach children? For instance, in the last couple of weeks, Facebook has launched a chat app for children who are not old enough to be signed up to Facebook. The new app is aimed at six to 12 year-olds. Will the new code apply just to this app or to the version of Facebook that permits access by those aged 13 and above as well?

On 23 November, this House discussed online problem gambling. A number of interventions were made by noble Lords on online gambling sites that have games involving cartoon characters which look similar to characters in children’s TV, and most certainly appeal to children. When the Times reported on these games, the chief executive of the Remote Gambling Association said that companies were not deliberately targeting children but that some nostalgic games might inadvertently be attractive to them. I hope that the position of these sites under the code, which in theory should not be accessible to children but clearly are, will also be addressed.

Thirdly, how will sites complying with the age-appropriate design be obvious to parents, especially to parents who consent to their child’s use of any data? In this context, will the new code be incorporated into the next draft of the Internet Safety Strategy? Finally, how will the code be enforced? Without some good enforcement mechanism, it is likely that it will not have as wide-reaching an impact as this House hopes that it will.

These amendments have come at a late stage in our consideration of this Bill. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend and the Minister have to say in response to my questions. I hope that the other place will continue to reflect on the proposal before us today and refine it if necessary. I hope too that it will continue to ask questions about whether the digital age of consent of 13 is the most appropriate age, and that there will be satisfactory evidence that 13 is in the best interests of our young people.

The internet puts the world at the fingertips of our children. I commend my noble friend Lady Kidron for working to ensure that children are able to make the most of this amazing resource in a way that supports child development.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for moving these amendments with such incredible clarity that I was able to understand what they were saying. My question follows on from the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about how these amendments would be enforced. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, said in Committee, all these issues arise in an international context. How will the international dimension work with regard to these amendments? I would be concerned if we were to impose rules in this country which might create divergence from the GDPR and hence make it more difficult to achieve the eventual accommodations with the European Union that would allow us to continue to do business with it in the longer term. There is an international dimension to all this and I do not understand how it would work with regard to these amendments.

Video Games: Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that because of amendments introduced in your Lordships’ House to the Digital Economy Bill in March, it will now be perfectly possible for adults using the internet to access very realistic animated computer-generated images of child sex abuse and pornographic violence against women? Does he further agree that it was a terrible mistake to introduce this different enforcement standard online from that which applies offline, and will he undertake to introduce urgent legislation to address this error?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I took the Digital Economy Bill through this House so I cannot agree with the first part of the noble Baroness’s question. These things that are beyond the pale in many ways were available on the internet before and have nothing to do with what is now the Digital Economy Act. We are looking at ways to make this country the best place to be safe online and we will continue to do that.

Online Gambling

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for securing this important debate and for arranging the hugely successful event on Tuesday at which Peers were able to meet recovering online problem gamblers.

For too long, online gamblers have, in a very real sense, been afforded separate treatment. That is particularly inappropriate given the challenge that it presents. Online gambling is available 24/7 without even leaving your bedroom, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, has already said. As such, it is a profoundly solitary pursuit. Unlike in a betting shop, there are no members of staff in your bedroom to intervene if you exhibit a problem with gambling behaviours.

There is an irony because, for many purposes, online gambling provides a greater scope for protection than offline. Indeed, the Government recognise precisely that point in paragraph 5.19 of their current consultation, which states:

“Unlike land-based gambling, all online gambling is account-based, which means operators know who their customers are, what they are spending their money on, and their patterns of gambling. This provides opportunities for operators to use customer data to identify and minimise gambling-related harm”.


While I welcome the fact that the Government have recognised that, the proposals in their consultation do not appropriately marry the potential for protection with the measure of public concern.

Online gambling now has the highest overall problem prevalence figure, with devastating social consequences, including family breakdown, suicide and other horrifying stories that we have already heard. In that context, it is not surprising that public faith in gambling has fallen, as the noble Lord noted, from something like 49% to 34%. We have now reached a stage where we require legislative change, which currently is not proposed by the Government’s consultation. I will focus on some specific legislative changes that the Government should make, but I want first to address the matter of financial transaction blocking.

While MOSES will protect problem gamblers from legal sites, financial transaction blocking protects them from illegal sites. Although the Government rejected my amendment to require financial transaction providers not to process transactions between people in the UK and illegal sites, they accepted the need for it on a non-statutory basis. In response to that amendment, they asked the Gambling Commission to secure the agreement of Visa, MasterCard and PayPal that they would not facilitate transactions from websites accessing the UK market illegally.

I have since tabled Written Parliamentary Questions to assess the efficacy of voluntary financial transaction blocking. They reveal that, as of April 2016, the Gambling Commission had written to 60 foreign sites asking them to cease activities in the UK. Of those, three went on to obtain a licence, 41 ceased offering facilities for gambling and 11 were subject to payment blocking by payment providers. Given that there are nearly 200 countries in the world, many of which will no doubt host multiple gambling websites, the figure seems a little low to me. However, I accept that even if there are thousands of gambling websites in the world without UK Gambling Commission licences, it is only problematic from our point of view if they seek to access the UK market. I would be interested to know what the gambling websites operating legally in the UK think about those figures.

In the meantime, I have two questions for the Minister. First, does he have any more up-to-date financial transfer blocking figures for the House? Secondly, given the sustained interest of this House in the protection of UK consumers from illegal gambling, will the Minister undertake to provide a detailed annual report of the Gambling Commission’s warning to illegal sites and financial transaction blocking activities with the payment providers? That would be good for transparency and much appreciated, I am sure, by Members of your Lordships’ House.

Having addressed financial transaction blocking, I now turn to three specific areas where we need legislative change. The first and most important is MOSES. It is clear from Tuesday’s meeting that online problem gamblers view MOSES as hugely important. They were very upset about the four-year delay and exercised about the dangers of a two-tier system of self-exclusion. It is such a shame that the coalition Government did not accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, in March 2014. If they had done so, it is likely that MOSES would be up and running today. It is vital that this is now implemented as quickly and robustly as possible. That means that it must be introduced on a single and not a two-tiered basis, for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, explained. In implementing it, it is vital to remember that this is one of those areas where online protections can be made to operate more effectively online than offline.

Secondly, the time has come for the Government to look at providing a means whereby they create a single, integrated MOSES covering all legal gambling whether online or offline. That would mean that if any problem gambler self-excludes from any licensed provider of a gambling product in the UK, all such providers should be obliged to respect that self-exclusion for its duration. I am informed by experts that that would be entirely possible. It just depends on whether we have the political will. To be frank, in the context where public confidence in gambling is in free fall, we need the Government to come forward with precisely that kind of bold vision. It would really help the Prime Minister, too, in realising her goal of creating a Britain that works for everyone. If there is a concern about who should pay, I have no doubt that the industry should, as part of its customer care. However, I do not believe that it should proceed on the basis of self-regulated donations, which brings me to my third point.

Gambling creates social environmental pollution. In the same way that an actual environment-polluting business should pay, so too should a social environmental-polluting business. Ever since the Gambling Act 2005 became law, Section 123 has given the Minister regulation-making powers to introduce a statutory levy. Those powers have never been used and the industry is supposed to voluntarily donate 0.1% of its gross gambling yield. It contributes only £8 million. In a context where we have 430,000 problem gamblers needing help and a further 2 million at risk, that donation is, frankly, a joke. The Government should introduce a statutory levy requiring sufficient funds to deal with the social environmental pollution and to help manage it through MOSES. That should include the funding of a joined-up online and offline MOSES.

The final statutory change that I would like to mention pertains to the current inability of a problem gambler immediately to withdraw all money from a gambling account. If you are a problem gambler and you reach a point of resolution and want to stop gambling, amazingly, it takes three days to withdraw your money. At any stage in the process over the next 72 hours, you can cancel that application to withdraw and start gambling again. If you only manage to resist the compulsion to gamble for 24 hours and end up reversing your attempt to withdraw money, you are then back at square one. In the event that you summon up fresh strength the next day and try to withdraw again, you will then face another wait of a full three days with all that that entails. I have to say that it is hard to imagine a system that is designed to make it more impossible for problem gamblers to withdraw their money and take steps to deal with their problems, but perhaps that is the point. As legislators we simply cannot allow it to continue and I hope that the Minister will show that he is going to take some significant action.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jay of Paddington (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the aim of these amendments, as do other noble Lords who have spoken. They were extraordinarily well introduced, given the scope of what they are intended to achieve. As I said at Second Reading, I do not have the same authority and technical background in the industry as many noble Lords who have taken part, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Harding. However, I have a legitimate question for the noble Baroness. The Minister, who will have heard the general support around the House, will also be aware of this. However good the intentions of the amendments—and I support their aims—it is difficult to regulate in a world in which technical capacity is international. As the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, said, these matters are rather low on the agendas of the major, global corporations which are responsible for producing the technology, delivering the content and organising the platforms that children may be accessing, appropriately or not. It is legitimate to ask, as she did, whether what we say and how we regulate in this country can be a beacon. I think she said that this could be the beginning of a geographical spread of better regulation. It would be pointless to ignore the fact that we are dealing not with an internal issue of domestic regulation as we would be with terrestrial broadcasting, but with global corporations, most of them based on the west coast of the United States, which do not necessarily even agree with the aims of these amendments—which I very certainly do.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, the intention for a minimum level of design to help children and their parents, set out in Amendments 18, 19, and 155, is indeed laudable and provides an excellent opportunity for us to debate the role of the Information Commissioner. However, I am concerned that these amendments continue legal uncertainty in a number of ways. The revised Clause 8, introduced by Amendment 18, would uphold the age of 13 as the age of digital consent—but only when a website,

“meets the minimum standards of age-appropriate design as determined by the Commissioner”.

Similarly, Amendment 19 seeks to ensure that sites which children under 13 are likely to visit have a certain minimum design to help children and parents. Details for establishing those standards are in Amendments 155, 156 and 157.

My first concern is how a consumer—a child or parent—will know whether a website meets the minimum standards and therefore which age of consent applies. Secondly, what would happen were a site not to meet the minimum standards set by the Information Commissioner but still used 13 as the age for when a parent is no longer required to consent to the use of the child’s data?