Children’s Privacy

Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The We Protect campaign, which the Prime Minister launched and which is chaired very effectively by my noble friend Lady Shields, is about self-regulation. It announced a major breakthrough just before Christmas about internet service providers seeking to remove child abuse images from the internet, identify abusers and ensure that they are brought to justice.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, given that three-quarters of the public believe that the media should protect children by pixilating or blurring their faces, does the Minister agree that more can and should be done to protect children’s privacy?

[Lord Bates]

I acknowledge the work which the noble Baroness has done and her personal experience in this area, which I am aware of and which, obviously, we all understand. In the case of the protection of privacy, everybody—certainly every parent—understands the lengths to which we are all prepared to go to protect our children and our children’s safety. The question is about weighing the balance between that right to privacy and the right and privilege of free speech and freedom of the press, which is an underscored part of our democracy.