Personal Data

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

One of the requirements of the GDPR, which will come into force on 25 May, is that you have to give informed consent. That means, for example, that there cannot be a pre-ticked box; you have to make an active and sensible decision on whether you give your consent. Companies are required to make it understandable and cannot just put a consent box at the bottom of page 25. Secondly, the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, made age-appropriate design a feature, which I am sure will be developed, so when people produce apps and other things they have to take account of the age of the people who are likely to use them.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I watched the Zuckerberg testimony and I have to say that I thought that a number of Members of Congress were perhaps not awfully au fait with internet technology. Given that he said that he took responsibility for the content, can my noble friend explain to me why Zuckerberg is not a publisher?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

This is a big change in the attitude towards how these sites operate. He is not a publisher because he does not commission the content. If he commissioned the content, he would be a publisher. There is a difference between that and taking no responsibility for it. As I said, social media sites are beginning to realise that they have to take some responsibility. People put content on his site. He and other social media have to monitor their sites to make sure that illegal and disturbing content is taken down as quickly as possible, but they do not put it on the site.