Online Pornography: Digital Economy Act 2017

Debate between Lord Morrow and Lord Kamall

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Indeed. One of the issues my department has been discussing with Ofcom is age verification and age assurance. We have to remember that age verification is one form of age assurance. The other thing we have to be aware of is how technology changes very quickly, so we must make sure that we can be as flexible as possible so that Ofcom can update its guidelines or advice on tackling this. We are clear that we do not want to be technology-specific. We want to make sure that it is future-proofed when it comes to age verification and age assurance.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister will agree that keeping children safe online requires more than just age verification. What is illegal or prohibited content offline should also be illegal and prohibited online. Will the Government ensure that the new legislation currently in the other place will indeed ensure that protections offline will be the same for online content?