Online Safety Bill [HL]

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Friday 11th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, in the film “Groundhog Day”, progress cannot be made unless the principal character comes across a moment of self-revelation. I do not think that is necessary in the case of the Bill. As we have heard, five years is a long time, but every year the noble Baroness has brought forward a better and better Bill. This time, we have the additional support of several noble Lords who have not only added their names to amendments but fervently support the Bill, as we have heard, and the Delegated Powers Committee has kindly assisted and provided some amendments. Perhaps that is the point at which Groundhog Day becomes reality and we can make progress. We wish the Bill all the best.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Shields) (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for her unwavering commitment to this agenda, and all those who have spoken and contributed to the Bill thus far. As you know, the Government are absolutely committed to the protection of children online, and we must acknowledge the significant and hugely encouraging progress that has been made in the UK on a self-regulatory and voluntary basis. Without legislation, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety has played a vital role in this process. This multi-stakeholder approach to internet safety draws together government, charities, and the internet and mobile industries, and provides a highly effective approach to internet safety that is the envy of our international equivalents.

This, in and of itself, is a future-proofing strategy. The Family Online Safety Institute, an international organisation based in Washington DC that works globally to drive up internet safety, says that the UK is,

“at the forefront of online safety and best practice”,

and that UKCIS is at the core of that.

The first part of this Bill, to which it is proposed to add Amendments 1 and 2, would set out additional duties on internet service providers, mobile phone operators, Ofcom and Ministers in respect of providing a safe internet service for children and information about online safety. This is beyond the self-regulatory regime of family-friendly filters already voluntarily applied by all major ISPs and mobile phone operators in the UK. However well intentioned the drafting of such future-proofing clauses may be, this is, as has been said, a constantly moving target. We have no reason to believe that the successful, voluntary approach led by industry will change in future. Nor do we expect that such an approach would be incapable of addressing these issues as they come up or the arrival of new operators, services and platforms.

Ofcom regularly publishes reports on internet safety measures and a forthcoming report will address the noble Baroness’s concerns. We feel that there is no need to set out arrangements in statute to require this at further intervals because they already do it voluntarily. Furthermore, all mobile phone operators provide filters as default-on, with age-verification controls in place before any changes can be made or filters removed. These filters are underpinned by an independent framework provided by the BBFC to define unsuitable content for under-18s, based on its classification guidelines.

However, as my noble friends and colleagues have mentioned, there is always more that can be done, and no filters or technological tools will be 100% successful all the time. It is crucial that parents continue to engage with their children’s internet experiences and ensure that they build awareness of and resilience to things they see on the internet which may upset them or cause them harm. It is also vital that we, as the Government, continue our effective and productive relationships with industry and Ofcom to consider how our world-class internet safety protections can be made even better. Great progress has been achieved in the UK through voluntary activity, with industry working together with Government and the charity sector in an effective and collaborative way. We have no reason to expect this effective partnership to change.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, on her amendment, which put the whole theme very effectively. We can all only do our best to re-emphasise all these points, because they are so vital.

We have heard a good deal about age verification in relation to pornographic websites since the publication of the Conservative manifesto, and rightly so. The commitment is of seminal importance, and I very much welcome it. However, we should not lose sight of an entirely different application of age verification in the online world, which the noble Baroness has raised in this debate. Filtering as a child protection mechanism is only really credible if filters are lifted in response to requests from adults. To avoid confusion, let me be clear about what I mean when I talk in terms of lifting filters, and what I do not mean. Having a robust filtering system does not mean guaranteeing that no one with special expertise will be able to bypass the filters. That is beginning to be made clear—I hope so—because many people have mentioned it to the Minister.

I fully recognise, as do most of us, that quite a number of young people will work out how to do bypass filters. My point has never been that a robust filtering system makes the internet safe—only that it makes the internet safer. What I am talking about here is the facility that an adult, regardless of whether or not they are a computer expert, should be able to access to lift adult content filters if they decide they do not want them anymore. While a robust filtering system cannot be expected to guard against those young people with real computer expertise who can work out how to bypass filters, it must ensure that the mechanism that ISPs make available to their customers to switch off the filters is subject to age verification.

To have filters in place that anyone can lift without age verification is a bit like saying that we are doing our best to promote security by providing doors, even though all the doors are unlocked. In this context, a so-called closed loop system whereby an ISP will send an email to an account holder informing him that the filter settings have been changed is completely unacceptable. As other noble Lords have pointed out, age verification takes place before an age-restricted activity occurs, not after it. As the polling demonstrates, a significant number of people would never open an email from their ISP. The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, made that point, and I could not agree with him more. I very much hope that the Government will start taking note of this aspect of the age verification challenge as well as in relation to web crime.

The Bill, which requires users to decide whether they want to access adult content, subject to age verification checks, would help them rise to this challenge. Clause 1(4)(b) requires that a provider of a service has to have age verification that meets the standards set out in Clause 2. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for moving her amendment, which makes explicit this very sensible requirement. I hope that on this occasion the Minister will have taken in what has been said and will do something about it.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, I think this is a logical amendment which follows the way in which the promoters of this Bill are taking it forward. It fits well into the logic of what we have heard so far, and it should be supported. As many noble Lords have said, age verification lies at the heart of this issue. It is not just in relation to adult content—however it is to be described—but also in relation to things such as gambling access and more generally. As we move into the digital age and as consumers increasingly exercise online purchasing power, there will be other issues where it is important to make sure that age is verifiable. I am not sure that we have got to that point. That makes the Government’s response so far rather confusing, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister says on this amendment. They seem quite happy to go with the crowd on populist measures, talking up what should happen here, but they seem reluctant to take the necessary steps to enforce them in a way that will give confidence to those who have to use these systems that they will work. Like the noble Baroness, I am looking forward to what the Minister will say.

[Baroness Shields]

I thank noble Lords for their comments. This discussion has gone way beyond the scope of the amendment, but I state at the outset that there is no reluctance on the part of the Government to take action here. We are talking not about what is going to be done but about how it is going to be done. We have talked about future-proofing, but the real issue is that by the time legislation is in the public domain, the world will have moved on. We are starting a consultation very shortly on age verification. It is part of our manifesto commitment. We have been seeking the advice of experts for the past couple of months and are going to open that up to the public. There is no wavering in the Government’s commitment to online safety. We are talking about how we are trying to do it versus what we are trying do. We all agree that this is an urgent issue that has to be addressed. We have talked about filters. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has been very involved in the development of age verification systems and, as he said, filters are a very crude mechanism. We cannot rely on them completely. That said, we believe they are part of the parental toolkit, and we will make sure that by December 2016 we are in compliance with the EU regulations on net neutrality. We will not let that slip through our fingers.

We are trying to legislate about many bits and bobs, if you will. We have to continue the process of co-operating with industry to evolve the regimes that protect children online. That is the only way. If there is something wrong with the way that ISPs are doing this and if there are things that noble Lords want to raise, they should raise them. The ISPs will change their procedures and modify accordingly. They are committed to this agenda. We do not need to legislate here. We just have to continue to work with them through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety and the voluntary mechanisms that we have established and we will accomplish more.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, on his amendment, which he moved so ably, not least because it highlights one of the key points that has been made repeatedly in debates not only on this Bill but on the many previous online safety Bills.

I have never been persuaded that the voluntary filtering agreement between the big four ISPs is anything other than a very temporary measure. In the first instance, I believe that filtering is sufficiently important to warrant a statutory foundation. In the second instance, I believe it is important for the Prime Minister to press the big four ISPs to introduce a robust filtering regime for the sake of the children in the house that they serve. If it is important for him to agree to do that then, as others have mentioned, it is equally important that he does the same for the children in houses served by other ISPs. Unless we believe that some children are more important than others, surely we must operate on the basis that all children are worth fighting for just as much as those serviced by the big four. If it falls to all of us in this current attempt to bring in an online safety Act to support and speak up for the children in this group, of course we will continue to do so.

In my view, the only sensible way forward here is an even-handed statutory approach, as set out in Clause 1. It should relate, as the noble Lord’s amendment proposes, to Ofcom’s reporting of filtering as well as to the filtering itself. If the Government now have to make statutory provision for filtering because of new EU legislation, it certainly would be indefensible not to apply the new provision to all providers. With this in mind, and as I and others have said, we would be more than happy for the Government to take aboard and use this part of the Online Safety Bill.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I opened my comments this morning by referring to the film “Groundhog Day”. I did so in jest and it was not taken seriously but, as we go through the Bill, I am beginning to think that it has more to say to us than I had thought.

Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, I am quite confused about the Government’s position on this. I am sorry to keep going on to the Minister, who I know is in a good place on many of these issues, but what is happening? She said, in a very strong statement, that there was no reluctance to act; on the other hand, she was quite careful to cover herself and said that that did not mean legislation. Yet, as we have heard, the Prime Minister himself—her boss—has jumped in and has said that legislation will be in place by 31 December, even though we think the date will be 30 April next year. I am not an expert on these matters and I certainly do not want to cause the Committee more confusion, because we want to get through this business today and make sure that the Bill goes on its way. However, it would be helpful if, either now or before the end of this Committee, we had a very clear statement.

Like others, I think this whole area needs people who are keen to see movement on it to get round a table and work out what can be done. If the Government are to go ahead with their own agenda, I am sure the promoters of the Bill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in particular, will want to get behind that and support it. However, as we know, legislation and legislative time is very difficult to arrange, so, if the Government decided that they had to legislate, it would be completely ridiculous to lose the opportunity available to us here today. We on this side of the House are very willing to support what is necessary to do this—we are not oppositional on this matter—but we are confused.

[Baroness Shields]

I thank all noble Lords for their comments. I start by addressing the conflation of some issues and the confusion that has been raised. On the confusion regarding the filters regime and its legality in terms of Europe, we must legislate to make our filters regime legal according to the new net neutrality regulations. The date for that is by December 2016. To be clear: we need to do something to keep our existing regime viable and functional under the law. That is the first thing. As the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, so aptly presented in his comments, the Prime Minister said that we would legislate to make sure that our filters regime is legal under European law.

It is not fair to insinuate that by challenging the vehicle we are somehow not supporting or speaking up for children. That is so far from the truth. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, said that filters are not a silver bullet and explained to us how technically they work. The work being done by the British Standards Institution and the Digital Policy Alliance to define a standard for things such as age verification is vital to staying ahead of this problem. If the result of this work is something that the ISPs can then adopt, we will have an evidence-based technological solution that will support us going forward. That is much better than trying to tell the ISPs how to do it. We are looking to experts and developing an evidence base so that we can do this properly and voluntarily. The ISPs have said that they are willing to take that on board.

When the Digital Policy Alliance reports back to tell us how this can be done effectively, it will take time for these companies to go back to their engineering teams and develop solutions that enable them to implement those recommendations. That all takes time. You cannot legislate for that today. We are not talking about whether we are committed to it or the industry is committed to it.