Age Appropriate Design Code

Lord McNally Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord McNally]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to lay before the House the necessary secondary legislation to implement the age appropriate design code under Section 123 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, it is vital that we lead the world in making sure that our children are safe while they are online. As a result of that, the Data Protection Act made provision for the Information Commissioner to produce an age-appropriate design code. That will be laid before the Secretary of State on 23 November.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister shares my confidence that the ICO will produce a very effective code. Will it cover things like the false information about vaccination and immunisation, which is having an impact on take-up, or the grooming of young people into gambling by free games? Would she not agree that there is a lot to do to ensure a real duty of care in this sector, and that this is only a first step?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Lord brings up two very important subjects which we must sort out. These come under the remit not of the ICO but of the online harms White Paper. Alongside that, the gambling question mentioned by the noble Lord is also being looked at—the DCMS Select Committee produced a report on immersive and addictive technologies. The Government are going to look at that very closely before they make a response.