Social Media: News

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

That this House takes note of the role played by social media and online platforms as news and content publishers.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to open a debate with such a broad range of informed speakers to follow. The question in front of us produces a number of interrelated and extremely important issues. I shall not attempt to cover them all but, instead, simply to set the scene for the detailed contributions that are to follow.

The interface between humans and information, be it visual, graphic, moving images, sound or text, is as long as our history. Our understanding of what to expect from those interactions is seen through the prism of technological innovations, cultural understanding and legal frameworks. It is encapsulated by the concepts of broadcast and publishing.

In this long history, the online service providers are an anomaly. The military and academic labs where the web originated were home to groups of skilled and active participants in an open web who saw the potential of decentralised networked computers as liberating and democratising. This was a physical network; these were academics and computer scientists bound by cables, not commerce. They did not consider themselves publishers, nor responsible for the content of others.

This view was almost immediately contested and overturned by early court judgments, but founders of the nascent platform successfully fought back. Citing the First Amendment, they insisted that their network of small networks had no controlling force and that the occasional misuse or obscenity was a small price to pay for a world with no gatekeepers.

The US “safe harbor” provisions in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996 allowed online service providers to host, hold and transfer information with no liability for content. This principle was mirrored around the world, including in the e-commerce directive of 2000 that codified online service providers as “mere conduits”. This was Web 1.0.

Much of the internet’s utopian promise came true. But what nobody anticipated, including its founders, was how rapidly it would become highly commercialised. Ironically, the “safe harbor” provisions of Section 230, established to protect the common good from a few dissonant voices, now work against that common good. Those who publish online are incentivised to categorise themselves as online service providers in order to benefit from having no liability for content. It is a commercial advantage that has seen the exponential rise of a vanishingly small number of companies with unparalleled power, no collective oversight and unlimited piles of cash. This is Web 2.0, and it is in that context that we are having our debate.

Amazon has set up a movie studio. Facebook has earmarked $1 billion to commission original content this year. YouTube has fully equipped studios in eight countries. The Twitter Moments strand exists to,

“organize and present compelling content”.

Apple reviews every app submitted to its store,

“based on a set of technical, content, and design criteria”.

By any other frame of reference, this commissioning, editing and curating is for broadcasting or publishing.

In giving evidence to the Communications Committee on 19 December, representatives of Facebook and Google agreed that the vast proportion of their income comes from advertising—87% and 98% respectively. This advertising is embedded in, pops up in between and floats across the content that their users engage with. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, was clear what that means when he said that,

“Google, Facebook and others are media companies … They cannot masquerade as technology companies, particularly when they place advertisements”.

In common with publishers and broadcasters, these companies use editorial content as bait for advertising. They aggregate and spread the news, and provide data points and key words: behaviours that determine what is most important, how widely it should be viewed and by whom. In common with news publishers, they offer a curated view of what is going on in the world.

The Silicon Valley companies are content creators, aggregators, editors, information cataloguers, broadcasters and publishers. Indeed, severally and together they publish far more media than any other publisher in any other context—but, in claiming to be “mere conduits”, they are ducking the responsibilities that the rest of the media ecosystem is charged with.

The media is understood to be a matter of huge public and social interest because it affects common values, certain freedoms and individual rights. For the same set of reasons, it is subject to a complex matrix of regulatory and legal frameworks. But publishing and, by extension, broadcasting are not only legal and commercial constructs but cultural constructs with operating norms that reflect a long history of societal values and expectations, one of which is that those involved are responsible for content. They are responsible because, traditionally, they make large sums of money; they are responsible because they juggle those commercial interests with editorial interests; they are responsible because, within those editorial interests, they are expected to balance freedom of expression against the vulnerabilities, sensitivities and rights of the individual; and they are responsible because they are a controlling force over the veracity, availability and quality of information that is central to the outcome of our collective civic life.

In November, there was an outcry after a journalist reported that algorithms were auto-suggesting horrific videos to young users of YouTube Kids. Google’s response was not proactively to look at the content on its kids’ channel but to ask users to flag content, thereby leaving it to pre-schoolers to police the platform. Google did not dispute that the videos were disturbing or that the channel would be better off without them, but in its determination to uphold the fallacy of being a “mere conduit”, it was prepared to outsource its responsibilities to children as young as four and five.

Whatever the protestations, this is not a question of free speech; it is a question of money. The Google representative giving evidence to the Communications Committee said that to moderate all content on YouTube would take a workforce 180,000 people. Irrespective of the veracity of that statement, for a publisher or broadcaster, checking that your content is safe for children is not an optional extra; it is a price of doing business, a cost before profit. In October last year, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was worth $700 billion.

I am not suggesting a return to a pre-tech era; nor am I advocating censorship. The media environment has never been, and hopefully will never be, home to a homogenous worldview. Nor should one romanticise its ability to “do the right thing”. It is a changing and fraught public space in which standards and taste are hotly contested and often crushingly low. But editorial standards and oversight, retraction, industry codes, statutory regulation, legal liability, and parliamentary oversight are no hazard to free speech. On the contrary—as information technologies have become ever more powerful, in democracies we demand that they uphold minimum standards precisely to protect free speech from powerful corporate and political interests.

The advances and possibilities of the networked world will always excite and will hopefully, in time, answer some of society’s greatest needs—but these companies occupy a legal space on a false premise, giving them a commercial advantage based on their ability to publish with impunity. That in turn undermines other media, threatens plurality and increasingly contributes to an insupportable cultural environment fuelled by a business model that trades attention for advertising revenue.

Sean Parker, co-founder of Facebook, said that when setting up Facebook the question on the table was:

“'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?”.


The answer was that,

“we … give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo … to get you to contribute more content … It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”.

The hermetic spiral of content ends in ever more polarised views as users become blind to other perspectives, denuding us of a common space. The result is the abuse of public figures and the spread of bullying, hate and misogynist content at unparalleled levels. The ad revenue model fails to compensate content creators adequately and we have seen the wholesale collapse of other creative industries, the long-term cultural costs of which we have yet to calculate.

In the battle for our attention we have seen the weaponisation of information to political ends. While nothing new in itself, the commoditisation of political narratives and the lack of accountability has promoted a surge of fake news, locally and internationally funded, and with it comes a democratic deficit. This was frighteningly illustrated by the outcome of a Channel 4 survey last year in which fewer than 4% of people were able to correctly identify false news stories from true. The cost goes beyond the cultural and political. Our attention is secured by an eye-watering regime of data collection and with it a disturbing invasion of privacy and free will. The insights and potential for social and political control enabled by unfettered data profiling without redress or oversight undermine our human rights, our rights as citizens and the need for privacy in which to determine who we are as people.

The appropriation of our personal data is predicated on the use of intellectual property law. The very same companies that rigorously avoid editorial standards and regulatory responsibilities for content are happy to employ the protection of terms and conditions running to hundreds of pages that protect their commercial interests. The cherry picking of regulatory structures is at best hypocritical. Lionel Barber, editor of the FT, suggests that we “drop the pretence”. In a soon to be published paper from a group of industry insiders comes the suggestion of a new status of “online content provider”, with an accompanying online responsibility Bill and a new regulator. But perhaps, just as the arrival of networked computers led to a new legal status of “safe harbor”, the arrival of networked tech conglomerates requires an entirely new definition, based on the interrelation of society and technology.

Because, while big tech has yet to wake up to the societal responsibilities of its current businesses, the rest of us are hurtling towards Web 3.0: a fully networked world of smart homes and smart cities that will see the big five companies—seven if we include China—monopolise whole sectors and particular technologies, controlling both demand and supply, mediating all our behaviours and yet remaining beyond the jurisdiction of Governments.

We must never forget the extraordinary potential and social good in the technologies already invented and in use and in those still emerging, including publishing at a grand scale. However, while the internet is young, it is no longer young enough to be exempt from its adult responsibilities. This is no longer an industry in need of protection while it incubates. These are the most powerful companies in the world.

In finishing, I ask the Minister to tell the House whether the scope of the Government’s digital charter will include a review of the legal status of online service providers and an ethical framework for content. Perhaps he will also say whether he agrees with me that the same standards and responsibilities should apply to the media activities of online service providers in parity with other media players. Finally, what steps are the Government taking to create an international consensus for a global governance strategy for online service providers? I beg to move.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I may sound like a long-playing record, but in this debate we have just a few minutes to spare on timings. I ask that every Back-Bench speech concludes as the clock reaches four minutes, as otherwise the wind-up speeches may have to be shortened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kidron]

I would like to be the first member of the data users union proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I hope that other noble Lords would like to join me. It is an excellent idea. In my excitement at starting the debate I forgot to declare my interests as set out in the register, including that as founder of 5Rights.

I think it is fair to say that you could characterise our feeling towards online services and social media as a combination of loving someone who is behaving badly, the frustration with an 18 year-old who does not quite know that they have grown up and is supposed to behave in a different way, and a palpable fury at corporate indifference on certain important subjects. However, it is too easy to just look at it that way. All those things are true and I share all those views, and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this fantastically interesting and progressive debate. However, what I heard most was our failure to articulate an ethical standard by which we want the industry to behave so that we can then meet it halfway. That was what came out of today’s excellent debate—questions of democracy, accountability, transparency, monopoly, tax regimes, codes of conduct and global consensus on governance. These are matters for society. If we are to have the society that lives by the values we want, we have to show leadership. I say to the Minister that I think the Government are showing leadership, which I welcome. I again thank all noble Lords for their contributions. This has been, by all standards, a wonderful debate.

Motion agreed.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his introduction and for paving the way to the comments I want to make. He suggested further reading but I might be able to shorten the reading list for the Minister, because I am going to cite a bit of what has been sent as part of that package. We went through most of the main issues and had a full response from Ministers the last time this was raised, in Committee. But since then we have of course amended the Bill substantially to provide for a significant amount of age-appropriate design work to be done to protect children who, either lawfully or unlawfully as it might be, come into contract arrangements with processors of their data.

That data processing will almost certainly be done properly under the procedures here. We hope that, within a year of Royal Assent, we will see the fruits of that coming through. But after that, we will be in uncharted territory as far as younger persons and the internet are concerned. They will obviously be on there and using substantial quantities of data—a huge amount, as is picked up when one sees one’s bills and how much time they spend on downloading material from the internet and has to find the wherewithal to provide for them. But I am pretty certain there will also be occasions where things do not work out as planned. They may well find that their data has been misused or sold in a way they do not like, or processed in a way which is not appropriate for them. In those circumstances, what is the child to do? This is why I want to argue that the current arrangements, and the decision by the Government not to allow for the derogation provided for in the GDPR under article 82 to apply, may have unforeseen consequences.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for supporting Amendment 175A, and I look forward to her comments later on, particularly in relation to children’s use. It is important to recognise that, if there is a derogation and it is not taken up, there has to be a good reason for that. The arguments brought up last time were largely along the lines that it would be overcomplicated to have two types of approach and that, in any case, there was sufficient evidence to suggest that individual consumers would prefer to be represented when they do so—of course, that falls away when we talk about children.

In Amendment 175A, we are trying to recognise two things: first, the right of adults to seek collective redress on issues taken up on their behalf by bodies that have a particular skill or knowledge in that area and, secondly, to do this without the need to form an association with an individual or group, or a particular body that has a responsibility for it. The two parts of the amendment will provide a comprehensive regime to allow victims of data breaches to bring proceedings to vindicate rights to proper protection of their personal data, always bearing in mind that children will have the additional cover provided by theirs being a third-party involvement. We hope that there will not be serious breaches of data protection. We think that the Bill is well constructed and that in most cases it will be fine, but the possibility that it will happen cannot be ignored. This parallels other arrangements, including those in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which apply to infringements of competition law—not a million miles away from where we are here—and for which there is a procedure in place.

To anticipate where the Government will come from on this, first, I think they will say that there is a lot going on here and no evidence to suggest that it should work. I suggest to them that we would be happy with a recognition that this issue is being applied elsewhere in Europe and that there is a discrepancy if it is not in Britain. Secondly, there may be a good case for waiting some time until we understand how the main provisions work out. But a commitment to keep this under review, perhaps within a reasonable time after the commencement of the procedures—particularly in relation to children and age-appropriate design—to carry out a formal assessment of the process and to consider its results would, I think, satisfy us. I accept the argument that doing too much too soon might make this difficult, but the principle is important and I look forward to the responses.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I too want to speak to this amendment, to which I have added my name, and I acknowledge and welcome the support of the Information Commissioner on this issue. I support the collective redress of adults but I specifically want to support the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on this question of children.

At Second Reading and again in Committee I raised the problem of expecting a data subject who is a child to act on their own behalf. Paragraph (b) of proposed new subsection (4B) stipulates that,

“in the case of a class consisting of or including children under the age of 18, an individual may bring proceedings as a representative of the class whether or not the individual’ s own rights have been infringed".

This is an important point about the right of a child to have an advocate who may be separate from that child and whose own rights have not been abused. Children cannot take on the stress and responsibility of representing themselves and should not be expected to do so, nor should they be expected to police data compliance. Children whose data is processed unlawfully or who suffer a data breach may be unaware that something mischievous, harmful or simply incorrect has been attached to their digital identity. We know that data is not a static or benign thing and that assumptions are made on what is already captured to predict future outcomes. It creates the potential for those assumptions to act as a sort of lead boot to a child’s progress. We have to make sure that children are not left unprotected because they do not have the maturity or circumstances to protect themselves.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, earlier this evening, the age-appropriate design code was formally adopted as part of this Bill. It is an important and welcome step, and I thank the Minister and the new Secretary of State Matt Hancock, whose appointment I warmly welcome, for their contribution to making that happen. Children’s rights have been recognised in the Bill, but rights are not meaningful unless they can be enacted. Children make up nearly one-third of all users worldwide, but rarely do they or the vast majority of their parents have the skills necessary to access data protection.

The amendment would ensure that data controllers worked to a higher standard of data security when dealing with children’s data in the first place. Rather than feeling that the risk of a child bringing a complaint was vanishingly low, they would know that those of us who advocate for and protect the rights of children were able to make sure that their data was treated with the care, security and respect that we all believe it deserves.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords for their comments. Although I have to say at the outset that we have some reservations about these amendments, I think we might be able to find a way forward this evening. I have listened to the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, and taken their remarks on board, but I have especially listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who spoke about children. We have some experience of her input in this Bill. I obviously take a lot of notice of what the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, say but, as you know, familiarity and all that, so I have certainly listened especially to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron.

The Government are sympathetic to the idea of facilitating greater private enforcement, but we continue to believe that the Bill as drafted provides significant and sufficient recourse for data subjects. In our view, there is no need to invoke article 80(2) of the GDPR, with all the risks and potential pitfalls that that entails. To recap, the GDPR provides for, and the Bill allows, data subjects to mandate a suitable non-profit organisation to represent their interests following a purported infringement. The power will, in other words, be in their hands. They will have control over which organisation is best placed to represent their interests, what action to take and what remedy to seek. The GDPR also places robust obligations on the data controller to notify the data subject if there has been a breach which is likely to result in a high risk to the data subject’s rights and freedoms. This is almost unprecedented and quite different from, say, consumer law where compulsory notification of customers is rarely proportionate or achievable.

These are very significant developments from the 1998 Act and augment a rapidly growing list of enforcement options available to data subjects. That list already includes existing provisions for collective redress, such as group litigation orders, which were used so effectively in the recent Morrisons data breach case, and the ability for individuals and organisations to independently complain to the Information Commissioner where they have concerns about how personal data is being processed.

What these initiatives have in common is that they, like the GDPR as a whole, seek to empower data subjects and ensure they receive the information they need to enforce their own data rights. By comparison, Amendments 175 and 175A would go much further. I stress that, as I have already said, we are not against greater private enforcement, and I have borne in mind the points the noble Baroness made about children. We also have reservations about the drafting and purpose of these amendments, all of which I could of course go through at length, if the House wishes, but in view of what I am about to say, I hope that will not be necessary.

Since Committee, the Government have reflected on the principles at stake here and agree it would be reasonable for a review to be undertaken, two years after Royal Assent, of the effectiveness of Clause 173 as it is currently drafted. The Government are fully prepared to look again at the issue of article 80(2) in the context of that review. We are serious about this. We will therefore amend the Bill in the other place to provide for such a review and to provide the power for the Government to implement its conclusions.

In view of that, I would be very grateful if the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment this evening and other noble Lords do not press theirs.

[Baroness Kidron]

Before the Minister sits down, can I get absolute reassurance from him that this is not pushing it into the future, where it will languish? Will the Government be looking to this review to actually solve the problem that we have put forward on behalf of children?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

It absolutely will not and cannot languish, because we are going to put in the Bill—so on a statutory basis—that this has to be reviewed in two years. It will not languish. As I said, if we were just going to kick it into the long grass, I would not have said what I just said, which everyone can read. We would not have put it in the Bill and made the commitments we have made tonight.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting Hansard: House of Lords
Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

109: After Clause 120, insert the following new Clause—
“Age-appropriate design code
(1) The Commissioner must prepare a code of practice which contains such guidance as the Commissioner considers appropriate on standards of age-appropriate design of relevant information society services which are likely to be accessed by children.(2) Where a code under this section is in force, the Commissioner may prepare amendments of the code or a replacement code.(3) Before preparing a code or amendments under this section, the Commissioner must consult the Secretary of State and such other persons as the Commissioner considers appropriate, including—(a) children,(b) parents,(c) persons who appear to the Commissioner to represent the interests of children,(d) child development experts, and(e) trade associations.(4) In preparing a code or amendments under this section, the Commissioner must have regard—(a) to the fact that children have different needs at different ages, and(b) to the United Kingdom’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.(5) A code under this section may include transitional provision or savings.(6) Any transitional provision included in the first code under this section must cease to have effect before the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which the code comes into force.(7) In this section—“age-appropriate design” means the design of services so that they are appropriate for use by, and meet the development needs of, children; “information society services” has the same meaning as in the GDPR, but does not include preventive or counselling services;“relevant information society services” means information society services which involve the processing of personal data to which the GDPR applies;“standards of age-appropriate design of relevant information society services” means such standards of age-appropriate design of such services as appear to the Commissioner to be desirable having regard to the best interests of children;“trade association” includes a body representing controllers or processors;“the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child” means the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 20 November 1989 (including any Protocols to that Convention which are in force in relation to the United Kingdom), subject to any reservations, objections or interpretative declarations by the United Kingdom for the time being in force.”

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, this amendment has a lot of merit. For some time I have been discussing with certain people who know an awful lot about this, as has the noble Lord, the concept of agency: having control over your own information. It is a very important concept because the GDPR and the Bill are all about data processors looking after your stuff for you, but the real issue is having control over things that affect you. Why, if people are using it to make money out of you or on your behalf, should you not sell them that control in return for better access?

There are many issues around this that might suit a modern world in which your data can be useful, but to you, so that data processors do not just mine it and use it for their own purposes—you have control over it. This amendment has a lot of merit because it gives a foundation for us to start researching this. There is no compulsion here, but it could move us down a line whereby the data subject—the person in the street— suddenly gets some control over what happens when people research things for their own good. We are going to have to give away our location and other things to use most of these apps, so why can we not also control that and decide how to sell it to other people and benefit from it ourselves?

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I, too, support the amendment. I raised this issue at Second Reading and pointed to the work of the ethics committee of the IEEE, which has done a lot of work on this. This is not as blue sky as the noble Lord suggested; this is indeed the direction of travel.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I am inspired by the last two speeches to add some words here. This is a very imaginative amendment. There is a great debate about ownership or control of one’s personal data, and this may be an elegant solution to some of that in future, although I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, may be right in his prediction about the Government’s response at this stage. Again, it is a bit of future-proofing that we really should think about.

If the Government do not like this, how do they think portability will work? If portability is to be a substantive right that can be taken advantage of under the GDPR, this is a very good way to make sure that data can then be inserted into a vehicle as a result of it having been sought in a portable way. This could be a very imaginative way to give teeth to the right of portability. I shall be extremely interested to hear how, otherwise, the Government think it will take effect.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

7: Clause 8, page 5, line 19, at end insert—
“(2) The Secretary of State must as soon as practicable after the passing of this Act by regulations require the Commissioner to set standards for the age-appropriate design of relevant information society services accessed by children and that such standards are to be set out in a code in accordance with section (Age-appropriate design code).”

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

Before I turn to the amendments in my name and that of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, I would like to recognise the extraordinary role of children’s charities led by the NSPCC; the Duke of Cambridge Task Force; child experts John Carr and Professor Sonia Livingstone; the Children’s Commissioner; and the remarkable support of colleagues on the Communications Committee and from all sides of this House, especially the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Clement-Jones. Without these powerful voices, we would not be introducing a statutory code of age-appropriate design to the Bill.

These amendments are a step towards a better digital future for children. They introduce a code that will set out the standards by which online services protect children’s data. They set standards that are directly related to a child’s age and the vulnerabilities associated with that age. They clarify the expectation on services to design data practices that put the “best interests” of the child above any other consideration, including their own commercial interest. They establish the standards by which the Information Commissioner will judge services on behalf of child users. Crucially, they connect design of services with the development needs of children, recognising that childhood is a graduated journey from dependence to autonomy.

Amendment 109 states that the Information Commissioner must consult widely on an age-appropriate design code, in particular capturing the voice of children, parents, child-development experts, child advocates and trade associations. In doing so, she will have to determine if the use of GPS location services to hold, sell or share a child’s current or predicted location is in a child’s best interest. She will have to consider if privacy settings for children should be automatically set to private. She will have to consider if the service can justify the collection of personal data, such as a child’s school or home address, their birth date, their likes, dislikes, friends or photographs, in order to facilitate a specific activity being undertaken by that child. She will have to deconstruct terms, conditions and privacy notices in order to make them understandable by, and appropriate for, children of different ages. A six year-old needs different protections and information from a 15 year-old. She will have to consider, with the development stages of childhood in mind, whether paid-for activity such as product placement and marketing is transparent to a child user and what reporting and resolution processes should be offered to children.

Responding to the concern raised by my noble friend Lord Erroll, the code will set out the duty of online services to facilitate the child’s right to erasure under the GDPR, with or without the help of an adult. Perhaps most importantly, the commissioner will—for the first time—consider strategies used to encourage extended user engagement; that is, those design features variously called sticky, reward loops, captology and enrapture technologies that have the sole purpose of making a user stay online. These will be looked at from a child development point of view. The opportunity cost, the need for a rich balance of varied online experiences as well as the need to get offline with ease will all be given weight.

Finally, the amendment invokes the UNCRC. The age-appropriate design code must incorporate all the rights of children, and the responsibilities of adults to them, as set out in the charter. 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.

Amendment 111 states that the code must be laid before Parliament as soon as practicable, but no later than 18 months from the passing of the Bill. Amendments 112 and 113 confirm the negative resolution procedure. Amendment 114 allows the commissioner to update the code. In Committee, my noble friend Lady Howe raised the question of enforcement. Although the code is not mandatory for online services, it is mandatory for the ICO to take it into account when investigating breaches and taking enforcement action.

Amendment 110 puts the age-appropriate design code into Clause 121 and, consequentially, into Clause 123. This means that online services facing a complaint of any kind, which have not complied with the age-appropriate code, risk enormous enforcement consequences, including the spectre of fines of up to €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover. In Committee, doubts were raised that it was technically possible to regulate the digital environment, so I am particularly grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Lane-Fox and Lady Shields, to Sky and to TalkTalk, for making it clear that there is no technological impediment to effective design; it is simply a question of corporate and legislative will.

Self-regulation has not provided a high bar of data protection for children. On the contrary, we have seen a greedy disregard of children’s needs from some sections of the tech sector in their eye-watering data collection policies. The introduction of a statutory code makes very clear what is required of them, and although data protection is crucial, it is not the only issue that confronts children in the digital environment. The principle which these amendments establishes—that a child is a child, even online—must now be established in every aspect of a child’s digital life, as a cultural and legal norm.

On this subject, I urge the Government to take one further step in the Bill: the introduction of a super-claimant procedure provided for by article 80(2) of the GDPR, and supported by the ICO. Children need advocates in all areas of life, including the digital. We will, no doubt, return to that in the new year. In the meantime, I thank the Minister, DCMS officials, the Bill team, the Minister for Digital and the Secretary of State. Along with those whom I have already mentioned, they have reason to be proud of introducing age-appropriate design standards to the Bill. Above all, it is a necessity for a 21st century child to access the digital environment knowledgably, creatively and fearlessly.

I support my noble friend Lord Clancarty, who has an amendment in this group. I look forward to hearing from the Minister of the Government’s commitment to the aspects of design that the commissioner will consider; that children’s needs will be at the heart of this code; and a clear indication that enforcement will be a priority for the commissioner and robustly applied. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

In preparation for the GDPR coming into force, the department is actively reviewing its data-sharing processes with third parties to ensure greater security, consistency, accountability and transparency around data sharing. Before May 2018, the department will review its existing arrangements and processes for sharing sensitive personal data to date to ensure they are compliant with the incoming regulations, and review them regularly thereafter. As part of that work and to ensure citizens have even greater oversight of the department’s data, on 14 December the department is publishing an oversight of all DfE external personal-level data sharing to date and will continue to update this publication regularly. In view of this reassurance, I would be grateful if the noble Earl did not press his amendment.

[Baroness Kidron]

My thanks to the noble Lord the Minister. The wonderful thing about having the Minister’s name to your amendments is that he has answered all the difficult questions. I thank everyone who spoke for their very kind words, not on my behalf, but on behalf of all the people who work to protect children, online and offline. I accept noble Lords’ thanks. It is very moving.

I would like to say three things. I was overwhelmed this weekend when the news broke that we had come to terms on the amendment. I received many emails from other parts of the world. To those who said in the debate that this may be a first step not just for us, but for the world—or at least in Europe—all indications are in that direction. I also reassure everyone that this amendment in no way threatened adequacy. Officials and I have been through this issue at great length. We had the kind and generous advice of Jonathan Swift QC, who is a great expert in this matter. We are quite sure of adequacy. On the question of enforcement globally, this is a challenge not for this amendment alone, but one for the Bill as a whole.

In the meantime, I look forward to working with the Government and others to make sure this is a meaningful first step to creating a digital world in which children can thrive. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 7, and note that the other amendments will be moved as they appear.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 184. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, the GDPR does allow not-for-profit organisations to lodge complaints about suspected breaches of data protection without needing the authorisation of the individuals concerned. I really do not understand why this has been taken out; it is such an important piece of legislation that gives teeth to data protection. Most people do not have the time or the inclination to lodge complaints against data controllers. So many organisations are now holding data about us that it is ridiculous to suggest that individuals can become data detectives responsible for finding out who holds data on them and trying to work out whether that data is being processed in accordance with data protection rules.

I went through the hassle of getting my own subject access request from the Met police. It took a lot of form filling and cost me £10, which was absolutely not money well spent because the file, when I got it, was so redacted. I did ask for my money back but was not given it. That shows me that most of us will not know that data about us is being held—so the amendment is extremely valid.

Despite my opposition to some provisions in the Bill, I accept that it is very important. However, it is equally important that we get it right and that we do not have all these derogations which mean that it has less authority and power. Personally, I think that the amendment strengthens the data protection regime without any hassle for consumers. I hope that the Government will include it in the next iteration of the Bill.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I, too, support the amendment. One thing that we can all agree on is that data regulations is a complex and highly technical area of the law. As the Bill stands, it asks members of the public to become experts on the subject, which actually creates a significant barrier to its successful implementation. My particular and declared interest in the Bill is the rights of children. It is a pervasive myth in the digital environment that all users are equal. That is a category error, because if all users are equal, children are treated in the digital environment as adults and their long-established rights and privileges do not then apply. So it is on behalf of that demographic that I want to say specifically that this amendment is very important.

Without the amendment, a child would be expected to take on the very adult responsibility of being a named complainant in a regulatory or judicial complaint for a breach of data law. In the case of a child, such a complaint is very likely to be made against a multimillion or indeed multibillion dollar corporation. That cannot be, in anybody’s mind, a fair fight. While the noble Lord’s amendment and indeed the GDPR are designed to benefit all users, I point out that the amendment usefully aligns with the recommendation made by the Children’s Commissioner and the House of Lords Communications Committee that children urgently need champions in the digital environment.

We have seen special provision being made in the Bill for libraries, archivists, the insurance industry, security and intelligence, and possibly even for journalists this evening. Given that, I am waiting for the Government to concede that, like all these other special needs groups, children are data subjects with specific needs. One of those needs is to have an informed advocate if they have a complaint. So, although I do not think that the amendment would adequately fulfil that role, because I would like to see something more formal, it would at least go some way to providing support for children should they have a complaint.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, without these amendments, I do not see how the Bill can provide an adequate remedy when a large number of people suffer a small degree of damage.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

18: Clause 8, leave out Clause 8 and insert the following new Clause—
“Child's consent in relation to information society services
In Article 8(1) of the GDPR (conditions applicable to child’s consent in relation to information society services)—(a) references to “16 years” are to be read as references to “13 years” provided that the information society service meets the minimum standards of age-appropriate design as determined by the Commissioner, and (b) the reference to “information society services” does not include preventive or counselling services.”

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 19, 155, 156 and 157 and in so doing I thank the many noble Lords who have voiced their support, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Harding of Winscombe, and the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, who have put their names to them. In Clause 8, the Government have chosen with nothing more than a tick of a box to treat a child of 13 as if they were an adult when in the digital environment, with the explanation that they are merely aligning legislation with the age used by popular sites. That cannot be right.

Children have special protections and privileges evident in our culture, embedded in our law and determined by our being signatory to the charter on the rights of the child. Collectively, the amendments affirm that a child is a child even online, a principle that is not sufficiently articulated in the Bill. I shall go to each amendment in turn.

Amendment 18 would make the consent of a child aged 13 to 16 lawful only when a service seeking that child’s consent meets,

“minimum standards of age-appropriate design”.

Amendment 19 would make consent given by a person with parental responsibility on behalf of a child under 13 lawful only when the service seeking the consent meets the,

“minimum standards of age-appropriate design”.

Passing these amendments would make it unlawful to seek a child’s consent or parental consent on a child’s behalf without providing a service that recognises the age of that child.

Amendment 155 would require the Information Commissioner to create guidance on age-appropriate design and take into account such matters as a child’s need for high privacy settings by default, not revealing their GPS location, using their data only to enable them to use a service as they wish and no more, and not automatically excluding them if they will not give up vast swathes of data however nicely you ask. If the commissioner so wished, it could also mean giving a child time off by not sending endless notifications during school hours or sleep hours and deactivating features designed to promote extended use; making commercially driven content, whether a vlogger or a direct marketing campaign, visible to and understood by a minor; and insisting on reporting processes with an end-point and a reasonable expectation of resolution. The amendment would require the commissioner to consult a wide group of stakeholders before coming to that decision and, crucially, sets out that she must also consult children, who are so often the first to adopt emerging technologies—early to spot the issues yet rarely asked to contribute meaningfully to how their needs might be met in the digital environment. Government has been widely criticised for not consulting children, so I wish to put on the record that where their views have been captured, children have consistently called for better privacy and data management, clearer guidance on content, transparent reporting strategies and greater visibility of how their data are shared and commoditised, calls which industry and government steadfastly choose to ignore. Amendments 156 and 157 would ensure that both Houses were able to scrutinise the guidance before it came into force.

The GDPR is the substantive law which the Bill supplements. While the GDPR acknowledges that children enjoy enhanced rights online, it says little about what this means in practice, and the majority of the provisions for children sit in the recitals, which, as we heard last week, are not binding. The limitations of Article 8 of the GDPR are pointed out by Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE, who writes that:

“article 8 of the GDPR is beginning to seem to me increasingly irrelevant. When kids tick the box the companies will then bear no responsibility to them by reason of their age”.

Meanwhile, John Carr OBE says:

“If you entice or allow 13 year-olds on your site, you must … treat them in a manner relevant to their age”.


Professor Livingstone and John Carr are arguably the most renowned experts in the field of childhood online. On this matter, they are joined by the NSPCC, Parent Zone, YoungMinds, the Anti-Bullying Alliance, the CHIS and the Children’s Commissioner—among many others—in supporting the amendments. The amendments provide clarity, allow our legislation to reflect our values, and are necessary to make industry respond to the needs of children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I do not think I mentioned confusion. What we are talking about in the Bill is purely data protection. We are talking about the age at which children can consent to information society services handling their data. What I think the noble Baroness, and a lot of Peers in the House, are talking about is keeping children safe online, which is more than just protection of their personal data.

[Baroness Kidron]

I also apologise for interrupting but I have to support the noble Lord, Lord Knight. When I read out the list, I said that Instagram takes information such as your phone number, your birthday and who you are chatting with. That is data, so I come at this from a very clear position on children’s rights. I am very keen for children to be online. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that we are beyond an age of consent, as he said on Second Reading. Consent is meaningless if you do not change the service on the other side of that consent. It is not simply about the bad things that happen. It is about abusing the entire data of a child when they are online. I hope that is helpful to put it back into scope of the Bill.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

There may be some confusion now. I am not saying that children’s data is not important or that data protection for children is not important: clearly they are. However, the internet safety strategy addresses an overall, comprehensive range of measures that is about more than just data protection. We want to have a comprehensive strategy, which I am going to come to, to talk about safety. Nobody in their right mind is saying that we should not protect children, not only on the domestic front but internationally, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, said. Let me continue and I am sure all will become clear. If it does not, I am sure that the noble Baroness and others will cross-question me. If I have misunderstood what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, is getting at, I will look at Hansard and get back to him. I am sure we will come to this again.

We have a clear plan of action to raise the level of safety online for all users, as set out in the internet safety strategy. We are consulting on a new code of practice for the providers of online social media platforms, as required by the Digital Economy Act. That will set best practice for platform providers in offering adequate online protection policies, including minimum standards. Approaching the problem in this way as a safety matter, rather than a data protection matter, ensures we can tackle the problem while avoiding a debate over whether we are compliant with the GDPR. The internet safety strategy also outlines the Government’s promotion of “Think safety first” for online services. This will aim to educate and encourage new start-ups and developers to ensure that safety and privacy are built into their products from the design phase. Examples of this type of approach include having robust reporting mechanisms for users. We are looking at whether extra considerations should be in place on devices that are registered as being used by a child.

It is essential that we take a careful and considered approach to affecting the design standard of online services. Making overly complex or demanding requirements may result in negative consequences. Let me explain why. Amendments 18 and 19 essentially offer website operators a stark choice. Websites will need to either invest in upgrading standards and design or withdraw their services for use by under-16s. This is dangerous for the following reasons.

First, it could cause a displacement effect where children move to less popular platforms that would potentially not comply with such requirements—the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, talked about foreign sites. It is often more difficult to monitor these services and to ensure they have the basic protections that we expect from more legitimate sites. Platforms comply either because they are responsible or because they believe that the regulator will take enforcement action against them. Platforms hosted overseas may not always comply, because to do so would reduce the volume of users and potential monetisation, and the risk of enforcement action may be low.

Secondly, it is likely that young people, particularly those who already use these sites, may lie about their age to circumvent restrictions. This could have negative consequences for the prosecution of online grooming and underage sex: teenagers would be vulnerable to the assumption that they are over 16; adults could use this as a defence for their conduct; and sites may not be as accountable for the content that children are exposed to. This is not an imaginary problem. There have been cases of acquittal at trial, where men have had sexual relations with underage girls after meeting them on sites for over-18s only, using their presence on the site as a defence for believing them to be adults.

Thirdly, circumvention may be sought through the use of mechanisms to anonymise—I am having a problem with my pronunciation too—the use of the internet. Young people may adopt anonymising tools such as VPNs to access non-UK versions of the sites. This would make it more difficult for law enforcement to investigate, should they be exploited or subject to crime.

Fourthly, there is already in place a variety of legislation to safeguard children. Any change brought in through this Bill would have potential ramifications for other statutes. Altering how children make use of online service providers would need to be carefully worked through with law enforcement agencies to ensure that it did not damage the effectiveness of safeguarding vulnerable people.

Fifthly, these amendments do not just apply to social media services. A broad range of online services would be affected by this proposal, from media players to commerce sites. The kinds of services that would be caught by this amendment include many that develop content specifically for young people, including educational materials, not to mention the wider impact on digital skills if children are forced offline.

I move on now to more practical considerations. I am concerned that the amendments as drafted, while an elegant proposal, could serve to create confusion about what sites have to do. We know that the GDPR will apply from 25 May, and I am not convinced that this will allow enough time for the commissioner to consult on the guidance, prepare it, agree it and lay it before Parliament, and for companies to be compliant with it. Online service providers will need to adhere to the new requirements from May 2018, and may have existing customers that the new provisions will apply to. They will need some time to make any necessary changes in advance. Even with the transition period available in the amendment, this would lead to considerable uncertainty and confusion from online services about the rules they will have to follow come May. This could result in the problems that I have already laid out.

Finally, the Information Commissioner has raised a technical point. These amendments would apply only where consent is the lawful basis for processing data. Children also have access to online services where the data controller relies on a contractual basis or vital interests to offer services, rather than reliance on consent. Therefore, the amendments may have less reach than seems to be envisaged and are likely to lead to confusion as to which services the requirements apply to.

In summary, in spite of our appreciation of the aims of these amendments, we have concerns. They may prove dangerous to the online safety of children and young people. Creating unnecessary and isolated requirements runs the risk of being counterproductive to other work in this space. There needs to be some serious and detailed discussion on this before any changes are made. Furthermore, the technical and legal drafting of the amendments remains in question.

There is no doubt that further work needs to be done in the online safety space to ensure the robust and sustainable protection of our children and young people online. We have demonstrated commitment to this through the work on the internet safety strategy and the Digital Economy Act. We are working on these issues as a matter of priority, but strongly believe that it is better to address them as a whole rather than pursue them through the narrow lens of data protection. We need to work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that we get the right approach. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for example, was among those who attended the parliamentarians’ round table on the internet safety strategy, which she mentioned, hosted by the Secretary of State last week. We are engaged on this issue and are not pursuing the work behind locked doors. These specific amendments, however, are not the right course of action to take at this time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kidron]

I thank everyone who has contributed to this fantastically supportive debate with their very interesting comments. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he is sure that we will return to this issue.

I am going to try to tackle a couple of points, but I do not have the organising skills with all my pieces of paper to pick up on what all noble Lords have said. I think there is a bit of a muddle in the Room about this approach, which is aimed deliberately at all data controllers. Those people who have for many years been designing with children in mind will have less far to go to meet the regulations than the people who have not been thinking about children at all. I am deliberately saying that it is a data question; I believe it to be one. This is not supposed to be in the gift of a few big companies; these amendments are supposed to deliver what children deserve and need in the digital environment. It is excellent that it is in a data environment, because it becomes a price of doing business. To the people who have misunderstood the point, we are saying that it will be unlawful to process data unless you provide these services—and, when that is the case, just watch the gold rush toward smart age verification. If children’s data is being processed unlawfully, we would expect there to be some sort of enforcement. I admit to the Minister that our amendment could perhaps do with a bit more work on enforcement and what that might look like.

Secondly, I want to make a point about resilience and education. I believe we are about to discuss education, which is an enormous component of online safety and resilience for children. But we must not make the mistake of thinking that children have to adapt to the needs of data controllers; it is data controllers who must meet the needs of children. That is what these amendments are about. I am absolutely committed to working with the Government, because all their public pronouncements on this subject are in that direction. We have to make it work, so that at least some of the work is done on the other side of the equation. I am unhappy about it being put in the context of getting a few big companies paying for some digital champions. In fact, I was very concerned that the Secretary of State chose to announce the internet safety strategy alongside Facebook, which has a programme it charges schools for that also teaches young people to be very good Facebook users. Before we get to that point, arm in arm with some of these people, we must first work out what our standards are. That is the role of this House. It may not be outsourced to Silicon Valley; that is not appropriate.

On data controllers raising the age, it is worth noting that nearly 3 billion people are online and one-third of them are under the age of 18. That is not a marginal group; that is a huge group. I find it hard to believe that data controllers will abandon that consumer group, just because we have asked them to behave a little better and be a little more moderate in the data they are taking. Again, regulatory compliance is a cost of doing business. Every business has it; this is just another example. I want to discuss this issue with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and write to her. She made some excellent points; some of them were perhaps on the misunderstanding of whether such compliance was for everybody or just some sites. I absolutely support her on the question of evidence and evidence-based legislation in this area; I do an immense amount of research work with children and academics. I agree with her, and will write to her in detail because her points were so specific.

Finally, I hope that the Minister, Matt Hancock, will forgive me for quoting him one more time. He said that the Bill’s purpose was to give,

“consumers confidence that Britain's data rules are fit for the digital age in which we live”.

I do not think that having millions of young kids in the United Kingdom treated as adults is a fit outcome for the digital age. I welcome the noble Lord’s clear sign that he is willing to talk to us. I will definitely be doing that. I hope he will also show me his legal opinion, as well as wanting to see mine. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 18 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that PSHE would be the most appropriate way to educate young people about data rights? If so, I note that the Secretary of State, Justine Greening, has today announced that Ian Bauckham will lead the review on how relationship and sex education for the 21st century will be delivered. Can the Minister, who is clearly prepared to think about this appointment today, ask whether it is within his scope to think about how data rights education may be delivered as part of that review, and whether the review will draw on the work of the previous person who reviewed the delivery of PSHE, Sir Alasdair Macdonald, the last time Parliament thought that compulsory SRE was a good idea?

[Baroness Kidron]

I support the amendment. I was on the House of Lords Communications Committee, to which the noble Lord just referred. We recommended that digital literacy be given the same status as reading, writing and arithmetic. We set out an argument for a single cross-curricular framework of digital competencies—evidence-based, taught by trained teachers—in all schools whatever their legal status.

At Second Reading, several noble Lords referred to data as the new oil. I have been thinking about it since: I am not so certain. Oil may one day run out; data is infinite. What I think we can agree is that understanding how data is gathered, used and stored, and, most particularly, how it can be harnessed to manipulate both your behaviour and your digital identity, is a core competency for a 21st-century child. While I agree with the noble Lord that the best outcome would be a single, overarching literacy strategy, this amendment would go some small way towards that.

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, I add my voice to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. President Clinton memorably said that the first step in solving a problem is recognising there is one. If anyone does not believe there is one, we rehearsed some of it in the previous debate; I would also advise them to watch two very recent TED Talks by Zeynep Tufekci and Sam Harris. If, having seen these, they can convince themselves there is not a serious and urgent problem, then their judgment is very different from mine.

I will speak for a couple of moments on this because I regard it as a very significant issue. Karl Marx—who knew a thing or two—said that if you change the dominant mode of production that underpins a society, the social and political structure will change, too. I believe we have changed the fundamental mode of production that underpins society. It is now called digital. We have to address that and we are not addressing it anything like seriously enough. There are two issues I would like to raise, and if there is a note of frustration in my voice, I apologise.

In 2003, through very torturous processes in this House, we managed to persuade the then Labour Government to impose a duty on Ofcom—and I spend most of my life defending Ofcom—which was very clear; it was laid out by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, at Second Reading. Ofcom was given the specific duty of promoting media literacy. The wording was that Ofcom was required,

“to bring about, or to encourage others to bring about, a better public understanding of the nature and characteristics of material published by means of the electronic media”,

and,

“to bring about, or to encourage others to bring about, a better public awareness and understanding of the processes by which such material is selected, or made available, for publication by such means”.

Fifteen years later, in respect of these duties, Ofcom has wholly failed. By taking a very narrow, technical view of its responsibility, it has done almost nothing to promote notions of digital literacy in the electronic media. If we are not careful, the same will happen in the digital world. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, used a much better phrase than “digital literacy”. She used the phrase “digital understanding” in a recent debate in your Lordships’ House. That is really what this is about.

To emphasise something that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, this is all about data. Ten days ago in Los Angeles, Lachlan Murdoch—who I think also knows a thing or two about this business—said the following:

“We’re in the beginning of an incredible transformation … we’re in the first months of something that will have a multi-decade life and future. Businesses that have large data sets and robust data sets will be the companies that win in the future”.


Every company in Silicon Valley and every communications company in the world knows that. This is why this is such a fundamental issue.

To my delight and surprise, the Italians appear to have picked up on this. In the New York Times of 18 October there is a long piece about a new law that was passed on 31 October by the Italian parliament that entirely acknowledges that young people have to have a far greater understanding of the modes of information, the nature of information and the ramifications of information than is presently the case. Some 8,000 schools in Italy are now receiving instructions on how to get across to children the seriousness and importance of, first, the manner in which they give and use their data and, secondly, the means by which they are informed.

Finally, in a very recent book Move Fast and Break Things by Jonathan Taplin, a man I happen to know, he says:

“Part of our role as citizens is to look more closely at the media surrounding us, think critically about its effects, and whose agenda is being promoted”.


I put it to your Lordships that every single front page of every newspaper over the past four months has made this extraordinarily evident. In the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, we are “sleepwalking” into a situation over which we have little control and of which the companies that do have control are not taking sufficient notice. As proved by the Communications Act 2003, you can crunch out the best possible wording and it is still possible for that wording to have absolutely no lasting effect on society as a whole.

Channel 4: Privatisation (Communications Committee Report)

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests and take this opportunity to thank the late David Rose, who gave me my first opportunity to direct a film when I was not yet 24 years old and there were no women directors around. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Best, who is a diplomat of the highest order and an excellent chairman of the committee, and to the Secretary of State for heeding our call in her wonderful decision not to privatise Channel 4.

I thought that I would be providing an alternative view, but it turns out that I rise only to support the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which I am happy to do. I want to draw attention to an influential report, A New Destination for the Arts, which many noble Lords may remember was published in 2015 by GPS Culture. It made a very strong case for the transfer of public arts funding to the regions and nations. The report became the zeitgeist for a couple of years, and was responsible for a huge shift in attitude, with vast sums of public money and some private funds going from London to the regions. The report argued that London had drawn further and further ahead of the rest of England in its dominance of cultural life and that unless decisions on programme design and funding allocations were taken at local level, the privileges and concerns of a metropolitan elite would always prevail, thereby leaving the nations and regions behind in relation to the cultural, economic and social benefits of the creative industries. Crucially, that also leaves them out of the financial support and training of creative talent.

I hear those noble Lords who talk about reallocation and the dearth of talent. There has been a presumption in this debate that all the talent lives in London. I would say that while there is a presumption that most of the talent works in London, it does not necessarily live there, and this is a huge opportunity.

Furthermore, the report gave evidence that the rebalancing would have to be at sufficient scale to reduce the risk of parochialism and ensure the creation of creative communities, which rely on a mix of skills and competencies to make creative collaboration and production sustainable. The same argument pertains here. We have seen what the BBC’s move has meant in Salford; we have seen the “Game of Thrones” effect in Northern Ireland and that of “Doctor Who” in Cardiff. Controversial and expensive as that BBC move to Salford was, it has had a significant economic and cultural impact, with a growth in opportunities for local employment and training. We can see that a more diverse group of decision-makers eventually ends up making our screens more diverse. That includes the vast numbers of UK citizens who live outside London and are currently under-represented, not only on the screen but particularly behind it.

I accept Channel 4’s arguments that moving its production spend and not its headquarters would make the greatest difference, that it is a publisher and not a producer, and that it wishes to stay close to its advertiser clients. But as the report articulates, it is only by creating an entire environment, sufficiently large and powerful that commissioners and production staff live and work, side by side, outside the capital, that we will see cultural change. What we have to decide is what we want to see in cultural change. Equally, I accept that if the Government were to insist on the superficial act of moving the headquarters but leaving the production spend with companies largely based in London, the cultural dominance of decision-makers in London would remain. The more exponential benefit of production spend is a greater contribution, so it is an all-or-nothing picture.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, will laugh if I disagree with Enders, because I often disagree with Enders. However, I think its assumption that the talent is in London and it has to move that way is false. As someone who plays host to at least 30% of the members of the Newcastle acting community who have to leave their families, their houses and their homes to come to London but who cannot afford to live and work away from home unless they B&B with me, I think we have to take this seriously.

I would like to make it clear that Channel 4 exceeds its current remit and that my words, and possibly those of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, are applicable to any major institution in the cultural industries. Whether it is for Channel 4 to fulfil the vision of moving something up north is an open question but, unless it is done by someone in the cultural industries, we are going to have an industry that is perpetually out of balance.

Our public broadcasting is the envy of the world. Its independence is an essential aspect. Channel 4 is an independent statutory organisation that enjoys sole responsibility for delivering undertakings on a 10-year licence, which it is in the middle of, so I do not understand on what basis we are insisting that it does anything—because, until it fails to meet its existing obligations, I do not see a role for government in moving it anywhere. While I personally would be delighted to see Channel 4 do its brilliant work of making distinctive and innovative programmes and challenging and inspiring further from this House than Horseferry Road, that is a decision for the Channel 4 board, not for the Secretary of State.

Digital Understanding

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I will use the time available to make two brief points. First, we often equate digital understanding with digital skills, and I believe that is an error which will hold us back. Secondly, I suggest that digital understanding must include a willingness to impose our values on the digital environment as well as to understand it on the terms that it currently presents itself.

With regard to the first point, I draw noble Lords’ attention to a report, “Digital Skills for Life and Work”, that will be published on 17 September by the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development. I declare my interest as a named contributor to this, as well my interests on the register. The report gathers some of the best research available from around the world, including from the big tech companies and concludes, in its chapter on skills, that many of the things explicitly labelled as 21st century digital skills are not actually skills but are a combination of knowledge, work habits, character traits and attitudes. The label “skills” encompasses abilities that cover a range of different technical, cognitive, social and ethical domains.

The report underlines that not all of these competencies involve direct use of digital technology. Many of them require awareness, critical understanding and non-technical expertise. In particular, it points out that digital interactions include not only what an individual does but what is done to an individual—and, increasingly, what is done to an individual when they are not consciously or deliberately engaging with the digital environment. In that case, it firmly attaches the idea of safety and security to a knowledge of and an implementation of rights.

The report states that skills, both basic and advanced, are just one small component of a broader set of literacies required for digital competency. It lays out those competencies in some detail, but I urge the Minister and the Government to embrace this notion of digital competency. I recommend the report to the many Ministers who have work in this area and will put a copy in the Library for colleagues after publication.

My second point is that technology is neutral but its culture is not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, so carefully set out. There is an awkward tension in having a technology that is able to help us to confront our societal needs—an ageing population, health outcomes, education, transport, climate change and so on—and a corporate culture that aggressively balks at the responsibilities implicit in sharing its tax burden or long-term societal responsibilities in the nation states in which they operate. They are the richest companies in the world, with a vast turnover of products which depend on their novelty and expire quickly. They reside nowhere and answer to no one because their presence and their business are considered virtual, even if the products and services they deliver are not.

Any discussion about digital understanding does not begin and end with teaching digital skills or competencies, how to protect the vulnerable online, automation or even questions of security and encryption but rather starts with the question of how we yoke the incredible power and potential of digital technology to our societal values. This in turn requires us to be somewhat clearer about what those values are, and what institutions and arrangements—national and international—are required to implement and protect those values.

The Government have announced an array of interventions in the digital environment. We await a Green Paper and a digital charter. To my knowledge, there is work going on in the Home Office, the Department of Health, the Department for Education, DCMS and the Ministry of Justice. I am looking for a clear core, a clear articulation of our values and a commitment to making our children, businesses and institutions—and our Parliament—digitally competent.