Children: Online Privacy

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the online privacy of children in the light of recent social media hacking.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are concerned by recent reports about the hacking of social media and have established the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command of the National Crime Agency, with the powers and international reach to tackle these types of crime. The National Crime Agency offers advice to children and parents, and our Cyber StreetWise campaign also advises individuals and businesses on how to stay safe online.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. As he will know, many of the more than 100,000 pictures leaked online in the so-called Snappening incident were of young children, and many of those pictures would constitute child pornography. What are the Government doing to ensure that social media companies tighten up their security? Are the Government considering tougher penalties for social media companies that have not taken sufficient action to protect their customers from data hacking, including pictures? Indeed, why are the Government not taking a harder line on protecting children online?

[Lord Bates]

Obviously, I recognise the expertise and the consistent interest that the noble Baroness has shown in this important issue. I reassure her and the House of the absolute seriousness and determination that I am sure that we all share to protect children against this type of event. For the benefit of the House, it should be said that the Snapchat incident was not in relation to the messaging application itself but in relation to Snapsave, which was an online website that was hacked into. The scale of that, with some 700,000 images per day uploaded by children, also affects the challenges that we find. As for what the Government are doing, one thing that we have done is to establish a joint US and UK taskforce to look at this whole issue. We are delighted that today the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, who heads that taskforce, has been introduced into your Lordships’ House, and can help us in developing and strengthening further the protection that we all seek.