Age Assurance (Minimum Standards) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I start by acknowledging the many colleagues who were unable to speak today but who wrote to offer their support and I thank those who are present. I know that many noble Lords have made a considerable effort to be here and I look forward to their contributions.

In a moment, I will set out the Age Assurance (Minimum Standards) Bill, what it does and why it is so urgently needed, but before that I wish to say why I am here. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register, particularly as chair of the 5Rights Foundation, which works to build the digital world that children deserve, and most recently as a member of the advisory council for the University of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI and the Draft Online Safety Bill Joint Committee. My work means that, day in, day out, I see children being made the collateral damage of tech industry norms.

During the first lockdown, I was asked to visit a distraught head teacher whose pupil had received and shared a video of child sexual abuse so grotesque that I cannot describe it here. By the time we sat helplessly crying in the freezing playground, the video had been shared across London and was making its way up north. It was a primary school; the children involved were not even 10. I was with a child at the very moment it dawned on her that she had been groomed. Her so-called friend for whom she had performed intimate acts had filmed and shared videos of her with a network of adults thousands of miles away. Her spirit shattered in front of me.

Earlier this year, 5Rights published research showing that accounts registered as children were being targeted with material that no business should recommend to a child: emaciated bodies, violent misogynistic pornography, razor blades and gaping wounds, and even a message saying, “End it all”—and, sadly, some do. My inbox is a testimony to the grief and rage of bereaved parents who do not accept these norms that we are willing to tolerate or even justify as a cost of connectivity and innovation.

I am adamant that we do not use age assurance to dumb down the internet, invade privacy or lock children out of the digital world—it is essential for their growth and participation in our collective future. But it is failure writ large that children are routinely exposed to material and experiences that they do not choose or have the capacity to navigate. It is in the name of these children and their parents that I am here.

Age assurance is a misunderstood term. For the record, it is any system that purports to estimate or verify the age or age range of a user. The Bill is extremely narrow. It requires Ofcom to produce a code of conduct that sets out minimum standards for any system of age assurance. These are not technical standards. The Bill is technology-neutral but requires all services that provide or use age assurance to ensure that it is privacy preserving, proportionate and rights respecting. Specifically, it determines that age assurance be effective. Ofcom figures show that almost half of children in the UK between the ages of five and 12 are on social media, despite most sites having a minimum joining age of 13.

The Bill will ensure that any age-assurance system protects the privacy of users by taking no more information than is needed to establish age and not using that information for any other purpose, and that age assurance will be secure. If it is to be trusted, the storage, traceability and disposal of data must be subject to transparent and measurable standards. It provides that age assurance is proportionate to risk. It would be foolish to require a child to present their passport to explore the world of Peppa Pig, but it remains a travesty that 80% of pornography sites have no form of age barrier at all—not even a tick box.

The Bill will ensure that age assurance is appropriate to the capacity and age of the child, anticipating that some children will lie about their age. Equally, it will provide appropriate mechanisms for users to challenge decisions. If a child’s age is wrongly determined or an adult is mistaken for a child, there must be robust routes to redress. The Bill demands that age assurance be compatible with data legislation. I have spent the last four years working to ensure that the age-appropriate design code offers children a high bar of data protection in the certain knowledge that data protection makes children safer. That is why privacy is at the heart of this Bill. But as technology changes and we enter a world of virtual and alternate realities, as envisaged by Facebook’s punt on the metaverse, data law will change. Any regulation must keep one eye on the future.

Let me be utterly clear: age assurance is not a silver bullet that will fix all the ills of the digital world, but without it we cannot deliver the promises or protections to children that we have already made, neither to those underage nor to those between 13 and 17 who are so poorly protected in a digital world that treats over-13s as adults.

Nor is this a choice between user privacy and child safety. The sector’s enormous wealth is predicated on having a detailed knowledge of its users. As one child said to me, “How do they know I like red Nike trainers, but they don’t know I’m 12?” It is convenient to know that a child likes Nike trainers, because that drives advertising revenue. However, it is inconvenient to know that he is 12, because if you know that, why on earth is your algorithm recommending dating apps or extreme content, or sending him messages that suggest that he kill himself?

The Bill does not prescribe the technology that companies should use. AI, image or speech analysis, parental controls, cross-counter authentication, know your customer checks, capacity testing and age tokens from trusted partners all have a place. What we do not have is rules of the road, resulting in every provider, business or social media company making them up to suit itself.

When the Minister stands up, I anticipate that he will say that the department is working on a voluntary standard for age-assurance providers, but a voluntary standard needs volunteers. It will simply make the good guys better and leave the bad guys as they are. He may also be tempted to suggest that the online safety Bill will deal with this. I have read the Bill many times and there is no mandatory code of conduct for age assurance. Even if Parliament insists, which I believe it will, the earliest that a code could be operational by this route is 2024. The Digital Economy Act brought age verification for commercial pornography into law in 2017, but this is yet to be implemented. A child who was 11 in 2017 will be an adult by 2024.

Perhaps the Minister will say that this modest Bill is too broad as it touches on privacy, which is the domain of the ICO. This profoundly misunderstands the construction of the digital world. Data is the engine of the attention economy. Not only age assurance, but many of the codes in the online safety Bill, will require co-regulation, or they will fail.

I thank the noble Lord the Minister, the Minister for Technology and Innovation and the Secretary of State for their time. I wish to make it clear that I do not doubt that we all agree on the destination. But this is an issue that has concerned us for a decade. Legislation has been in place for four years and promises have been made by six Secretaries of State. Meanwhile, every day, children pay the price of a wilfully careless industry, sometimes with their lives.

If, when the Minister answers, he is able to give the Government’s full support, he has my deepest apologies for anticipating his words wrongly. However, on the basis that he will not, I ask him to answer this challenge. Which one of the 50% of 10 year-olds, approximately 400,000 children, currently on TikTok does not deserve immediate protection? Which one of the children receiving child sexual abuse material so horrific that it cannot be forgotten or unseen in a lifetime does not deserve immediate protection? How many children does he anticipate will be radicalised, grow into violent sexual norms, lose sleep or confidence or be pushed into cycles of self-harm and depression during the two years that the Government are willing to delay, when Ofcom has the staff and money, and could have the mandate, right now? What would he say to the parents of Molly and Frankie and other parents who have lost children about putting at risk even one more child who could be given a service suitable for their age? Which Facebook whistleblower revelations or headlines about Instagram, OnlyFans, YouTube, TikTok and Omegle—to name just a few—have given the Government confidence that industry will meanwhile do the right thing?

I ask the House not to amend the Bill, in order to give mandatory privacy-preserving, trusted age assurance a swift passage. I say to the Government: this Bill deserves more than their sympathy; it deserves their support. I beg to move.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I respectfully remind noble Lords of the advisory speaking time of six minutes. The House has a lot of business today. Thank you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me. I had a very generous speech thanking them individually for all their contributions—and, indeed, they were wonderful—but I would like to cut to the chase and say that this is not good enough. The time has run out. I reserve my thanks for one group: the children from Westminster Academy. I thank them for looking at the Bill and for giving a more positive response than the Government.

I thank the Minister and believe that he will engage with me. He has made the vast mistake of letting me have his mobile phone number, so he will indeed be engaging with me on this matter, as his predecessors have found out to their cost. I simply say this: time has run out for voluntary standards, for fractured regulatory arrangements or for Governments trying to take a technical role. The Bill is ready-baked to put age assurance at the top of the tech sector’s in-tray, and it will be that sector that solves the problem once we tell it what we want. It would mean that a child getting their first smartphone today would have the protections in place by the time they started big school next year.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, in the 1980s, while both my gender and geography were against me, I was able to begin my directing career at Channel 4 and subsequently build it at the BBC. Since that time, I have worked across the creative industries from Hollywood studios and streamers to independents and PSBs. With that in mind, I draw the attention of the House to my interests on the register in relation to the tech sector and as director of a TV and theatre company. It was a privilege to be a member of the Communications Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, at the time of the report’s inquiry. I would like to associate myself with his words at the beginning of the debate.

I want to talk briefly about three things: the urgent need to support a national broadcaster; the funding model of the BBC; and who the competition really is. It is striking that, for a much-loved institution, the BBC attracts so much ire. It manages to upset the left for its failure to give it a platform and the right for being a hotbed of liberals. It is accused of failing the young as they abandon it for YouTube, and failing the old, in the debacle of the over-75s licence fee. Perhaps it is the role of a Cross-Bencher to point out that, if it is upsetting both sides, it is probably doing a reasonable job.

In a time of division, culture wars and disputed realities algorithmically pushed to highlight our difference, the nation’s broadcaster should not be a comfort to any one view but an instrument for, and a mirror to, us all. The danger of this moment is that our divisions—symbolised by our fragmentation north and south, Brexit or not, urban or rural, nationalism or unity—overwhelm our common interest. The vast majority of our witnesses made the case that, more than ever, we need a broad expansive space in which to see our collective selves, not a narrowed-down public broadcaster doing only what commercial players are not motivated to do, which, ironically, is likely to result in a diet that feeds only an urban elite.

I would like to underline that it is breadth of experience, shared across class and region, across all of our fault-lines, that must be the ambition: to enjoy the talent shows, our national obsessions of housebuilding and watching other people cook; to watch “Small Axe” or “Line of Duty”; to hear the nightly news—which is still trusted above any other—as one nation. Streamers and video-on-demand services are deliberately designed to offer a personalised world. When I choose content based on my interests or characteristics, I am offered more of the same. While it feels comforting to be reflected, it automatically demotes content based on other interests and alternate characteristics. The BBC is unique in that its role is to ensure that we all see ourselves not as individual islands but in the context of each other.

Turning to the licence fee, the Committee was clear that the process should be transparent and based on the duties that are set out. It is not right that the BBC is asked to invest in infrastructure or give free licences if that takes away its ability to provide the programming that the nation demands. I support the recommendation absolutely but, perhaps somewhat controversially, I increasingly accept the argument of those who say that times have changed and that the licence fee, while still extraordinary value for money, is organised as something of a poll tax—neither based on usage nor ability to pay.

My personal view is that the BBC should have a ring-fenced settlement from central taxation. While I share the fear of political interference, I am not sure that the perennial threat to the licence fee—whether freezing it, forcing it to be spent inappropriately or legitimising non-payment—does not amount to political interference by less transparent means. It is in the national interest to fund and protect our national broadcaster, because our prosperity and identity are better held in public together, rather than as an ever increasingly divided nation distracted by its own atomised furies. Undoubtedly, it is irksome to each successive Government to feel the bite, especially when they hold the potential to defang it, but while it is a temptation to disempower the BBC, it should be resisted. Whatever our starting point, we all lose if we do not have one eye on building our common identity.

Finally, can we put to bed the notion that the battle for control of our attention is between the BBC and commercial radio, local press, Sky or even the streamers? It is, of course, the platforms—YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok—that dominate our cultural and information technologies and who fuel the ever more fragmented and personalised realities, artificially promoting false binaries and extremities at the expense of a collective experience.

Neither culture nor politics is a zero-sum game. It does not follow that, if the platforms or streamers have content, we need none in our collective hands. The PSB system offers the opportunity of a contemporary and collective vision of what binds us at a crucial time in which we are readdressing our role on the global stage and working out what being a United Kingdom means. By all means, let us continue to discuss the detail, but let us not misunderstand the purpose. As this excellent report concludes, the PSB system is more vital than ever.

Data Protection Act 2018: Children

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Kidron]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to their call for views and evidence for the Review of Representative Action Provisions, Section 189 Data Protection Act 2018, published on 27 August 2020, what plans they have to reflect the views of the children consulted as part of the Review in changes to the Data Protection Act 2018.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran)]

My Lords, DCMS officials consulted children directly as part of the call for views. Children who responded pointed to a lack of awareness about how to complain to the ICO or take action against a data controller when things go wrong. That is why we have committed to work with the ICO and other interested parties to raise awareness about the redress mechanisms available to all data subjects, including children. Our focus is on improving the operation of current law, rather than making legislative changes.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I thank the noble Baroness for her response. However, the other thing that children said in the Government’s own review was that 96% of them thought that charities should be able to represent them—and that they had a “lack of support” and

“had not heard of the ICO.”

As the noble Baroness said, they also lacked awareness of how companies such as advertisers might use their personal data—so they may not even know that they have a problem. As such, I challenge the noble Baroness to say that only a handful people can successfully understand and challenge data protection law.

The other thing is that the Government’s reasoning was that children now benefit from the protections of the age-appropriate design code, so I ask the noble Baroness, as Minister for Youth Policy and DCMS: how do the Government reconcile wilfully ignoring the views of children—in favour of the business interests of the tech sector—with their duties under Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is that views must be heard in “matters affecting the child”? Are we to understand from this that—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, could the noble Baroness curtail her question? It is time for the Minister to reply.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I beg your pardon. Is it the Government’s position to adopt protections for children and then block meaningful routes of redress?

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

It is very important that those people asking supplementary questions keep them to a sensible time—otherwise, it simply knocks out other speakers lower down the list.

Video-sharing Platforms: BBFC Ratings

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Absolutely. The Government welcome Netflix’s decision and, as I mentioned earlier, we continue to work with a number of the providers in this area.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I refer the House to my interests on the register. Age rating is just one of the many tools needed to build the digital world that children deserve, but it is hugely important to children and families that are looking to curate an age-appropriate experience. Is the Minister aware that Apple and Google app stores routinely advertise apps and games as suitable for four-plus and nine-plus for services whose own terms and conditions state that they are only for 16-plus or adult use? This means that a child or parent will download an app on the false understanding that it is age appropriate. Does she agree that there is little point age-rating individual pieces of content if the largest companies in the world continue to mislabel products and services on an industrial scale?

Australia: News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am very happy to take my noble friend’s suggestion back to colleagues in the department, but I know that we are in regular discussion with all the groups he mentioned.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I welcome the Australian Government’s action in creating a mechanism to distribute the value of news media more fairly. I hope that, when we do similarly, we will be able to ensure that it benefits the entire news ecosystem, not only parts of it. Deeply worrying was the spectre of the Australian Government revising their domestic legislation as a result of a series of phone calls with Mark Zuckerberg. Of course we need to hear the views of all stakeholders but, given that Facebook is clearly using its monopoly power and is willing to resort to bullying tactics to revise the domestic legislation of a sovereign state, does the Minister agree that, during the period in which we are working democratically on a number of regulatory fronts, including the online safety Bill, competition law and malicious communication offences, all interaction between Facebook and the Government should be on the record in committee hearings and other public arenas so that it cannot undermine the transparent, democratic legislative process that we all pride ourselves on?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government believe that social media companies must be held to account for the consistent and transparent enforcement of their terms and conditions for those using their sites. That includes online safety, to which the noble Baroness referred, but also protecting people’s freedom of speech. We are establishing a regime through the online safety Bill and the digital markets unit that will do this transparently.

Online Harms Consultation

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. We do not intend to ban anonymity online for the very group who she talks about, or for whistleblowers and others, as this would interfere with their safety, privacy and freedom of expression. Our approach is to make sure that platforms tackle abuse online, including anonymous abuse. This is a very challenging area and we are aware that many people in public life, for example, suffer extensive anonymous abuse. It is an area that we will keep under review, but without sacrificing in any way the safety of those who need anonymity to be present online.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the arrival of the Government’s response is most welcome, particularly its focus on young people. However, its focus on user-generated content, company size and the large number of exceptions move it away from the earlier and more flexible focus on assessing risk and preventing harm wherever it might be found. Concerningly, it leaves the system open to being gamed as companies redesign themselves to be out of scope rather than to prevent harm. How do the Government intend to tackle problems of explicit and violent content, which is widely reported on remote learning platforms, if edtech is out of scope? How do they intend to limit access to commercial porn sites that try to avoid regulation by not having user-generated content? Can she confirm that any company that introduces strangers who are adults to children via automated friend suggestions will be brought into scope, whatever the nature or size of the service?

Digital Platforms: Impact on Democracy

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I am happy to agree with my noble friend that we should accept the result of the recent election.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

The United Kingdom is home to ground-breaking domestic legislation—such as the recently passed age-appropriate design code and the upcoming online harms Bill—that seeks to protect children online. However, the protections that these measures offer are at risk from an aggressive lobbying effort that is leveraging the US-UK trade negotiations and might undermine our domestic regulation. In doing so, it is undermining promises made to an electorate who have voted repeatedly for a Government who have promised to protect children online. This is in a context where today, right across the BBC, we see programming highlighting the risks to children online, including a 50% rise in child sexual abuse material during Covid. What steps is the DCMS taking to ensure that UK children are protected in the US-UK trade talks, and will the Minister be willing to liaise with the Secretary of State for Trade so that I and other concerned parliamentarians can put the case clearly for a carve-out in the trade deal to protect UK children from online harms?

[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, protecting children online is perhaps the greatest priority in our online harms legislation. Obviously, we are working very hard to understand the interaction between our trade policy and our online harms policy in future trade agreements, but we stand by our online harms commitment and nothing in the US trade deal will affect that. I am more than happy to do my best to liaise with colleagues in the Department for International Trade, as the noble Baroness suggests.

Children: Exposure to Harmful Content

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran [V]]

I agree with my noble friend that the 12 rating was extremely helpful. The whole system of protection from the British Board of Film Classification was developed over a number of years, with great care. We are actively encouraging video on demand platforms to adopt it, and we were pleased to see that Netflix has done so.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I declare my interests on the register. The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the online risks facing children, in addition to age-inappropriate content. There is an emerging picture that includes grooming, child sexual abuse, financial scamming, threats of violence, misinformation and identity theft, at a time when children have no choice but to be online to access every part of their lives, including education and health services. Does the Minister agree that the platforms’ persistent failure to uphold their own age restrictions, which results in 43% of 11 year-olds and millions of much younger children using services while under age, puts children at considerable risk? Does she accept that if the Government had already brought forward their long overdue online harms Bill, the UK would, right now, at this time of crisis, be a much safer place to be a child online?

[Baroness Barran [V]]

The noble Baroness is right to point out both the benefits for children of being online, through education, entertainment and communication with their friends, but also the risks. We remain committed to bringing forward the online harms legislation in this Session, and I hope she will be pleased to hear that the laying of the age-appropriate design code, in which she was closely involved, is imminent.

Data Protection: Age-appropriate Design Code

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

My noble friend is right. We must ensure that all the technical aspects have been addressed. Obviously, these will evolve over time so we will need to continue to stay alert to this. However, the wider aspiration of the code is essential as regards GDPR compliance. We are already talking to and working with the social media companies and others because obviously a number of aspects of this in relation to GDPR compliance are already part of our law.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

The Minister will be aware of a letter sent last night by children’s charities setting out the many harms that have increased during the pandemic. They are now demanding that the Government should lay the code. My understanding is that doing so would take only a handful of hours for the Civil Service and just minutes of parliamentary time. Given that, can the Minister explain what is in the way of doing so now, apart from political will? Further, does she agree that this is an important test of the Government’s commitment to tackling online harms? If they fail to act, they will bear considerable responsibility for harms that might have been prevented.

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Baroness will be aware from the evidence given by my honourable friend the Minister for Digital and Culture that we absolutely see this issue as an urgent one but that we are unable to give a timescale at the moment. That is not due to a lack of will but simply that part of this is out of our hands. It is being actively pursued in discussions with the House authorities and will be dealt with as soon as possible.

Social Media: Fake News

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Baroness is right that we set up the counter-disinformation unit at the beginning of March, bringing in expertise from across Whitehall. When asked a similar question the other day, my right honourable friend the Secretary of the State assured colleagues that, when time allows, there will be a Written Ministerial Statement to reflect on a number of issues, including this one. However, our real focus at the moment is to act as expeditiously as possible when any misinformation or disinformation content gains traction.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my interests in the register. Children and young people are the demographic most likely to access their news online and least likely to have the funds to get behind a paywall, and they have little life experience from which to identify misinformation. A recent Pew report shows that those who believe in conspiracy theories are the least likely to observe social distancing rules. At a time when children are entirely dependent on online communication—we have increasing evidence that they are experiencing a range of harms, including misinformation—what justification do the Government have for the recent reports of a delay to the long-promised online harms Bill? In answering, can the Minister say when we can expect this Bill in the House?

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Baroness is right to raise the issues of risks posed to children and young people online. My honourable friend the Minister for Digital and Culture recently met a number of child safety organisations in this regard. We are continuing work in partnership with the Home Office to agree our final position on the regulatory framework as quickly as possible. Obviously, a media literacy strategy will form part of that.