Protecting Children Online

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

Yes; I discussed the numbers with the IWF, of course. It says that the survey on which it based that estimate was typical of surveys it has been doing over several years, so I think the problem is widespread and that we should not argue too much. It is clear that the numbers are far, far too big.

Up to 88% of the child victims appear to be 10 years old or under, and 61% of the images depicted sexual activity between adults and children, including rape and sexual torture.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

Google is one of the biggest hosts of child sexual abuse images, albeit inadvertently, and it should therefore accept the major responsibility for proactively monitoring and removing those images. Does my hon. Friend agree that if Google spent as much money on monitoring and removing illegal child sexual abuse images as it does on paying accountants to avoid tax in the UK, it might go some way towards living up to its motto, “Don’t be evil”?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. By a happy co-incidence I received an e-mail at 12.35 pm announcing that Google is increasing its contribution to the IWF to £1 million.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have two separate buckets. Some imagery is unequivocally illegal, but we would find other imagery exceptionally unpalatable and not want our young people to see it. Given that 88% of mainstream porn involves violence against women, we need to improve the filters to try to stop that coming into the home.

Another recommendation of the cross-party inquiry was that public wi-fi should be filtered. There is no need to see adult content on public wi-fi. That has been implemented in the majority of cases and we are looking for universal clean public wi-fi to be implemented later this year.

[Ann Coffey]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on her work and on the huge contribution she has made. Has she had any discussions with the retail industry on public wi-fi?

[Claire Perry]

I have not, but retailers source their wi-fi from a small number of providers, which have agreed to provide what is effectively clean public wi-fi.

We asked the Government for a formal consultation on opt-in filtering and got it. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) has rightly said, it is not clear that the consultation was entirely representative and democratic. However, it was an open consultation and we did our damndest to encourage people to respond. Consultations are not always democratic, and that one was what it was. Basically, the consultation rejected the idea of opt-in, but the Government response was clear that we should have much better filters that protect all devices; robust age verification; and a system that people cannot simply click through, and in which the filters remain on unless people choose to take them off.

Those changes are being implemented by the four main ISPs, which control more than 80% of the internet market to the home in the UK, and will be rolled out to new customers by the year end.