Online Safety Bill [HL]

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Friday 9th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for introducing this excellent short Bill and for her tireless campaigning on child safety and the media. Thanks are also due to others who have produced reports that highlighted this issue, including Reg Bailey and Claire Perry MP. I am also grateful to the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety and John Carr for their persistence in gathering evidence on the problem that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has presented to us today. My noble friend Lady Dean said that this issue is about child protection, not censorship, and that is true. This is an issue of child welfare and of the importance of child welfare coming first, as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I share other noble Lords’ concerns about the definition of pornography and its impact, which needs to be reconsidered in Committee. I think that the right reverend Prelate would agree that some of the images available on electronic devices involve extreme violence, which is also unacceptable, especially to young people. We only have to look at some of the games available, even to young children, which involve cruelty, killings, beheadings and torture. I would have liked that to be clearer in the Bill.

That having been said, the Bill is important and timely. I reflect on the Private Member’s Bill that I introduced to your Lordships’ House in June 2009. Some of the points made then by me and by other noble Lords are still relevant. As we know, the use of the internet is growing at an amazing rate. New devices are coming on the market regularly, and children are remarkably good at using such devices. A book called Consumer Kids by Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn makes us aware that,

“a visit to the bedroom of a British child of 11 … might yield a music system, TV, phone, text messaging, mobile phone, computer, instant messaging, voice over internet protocol, email, games console, DVD or VCR, MP 3 player”.

We live in two worlds: the real world where the identity of a consumer and their age can be checked, and the virtual world where that is difficult in relation to gambling, alcohol, drugs, knives, guns and pornography. Age verification remains a real problem.

Some good, responsible action has been taken. There have been agreed codes of conduct and practice by companies. Wi-fi providers have moved to bar access to adult content to minors on services they supply to the public, for example in high street shops.

However, let me give an anecdote which reflects some of the disturbing aspects of online safety and why we need to tackle confusion and bad practice. The Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety reports that, some time ago, McDonald’s—I speak here as a vegetarian, so I am not particularly supportive—told its wi-fi supplier that it did not want customers coming in to bring up pornographic images that people sitting on nearby tables may be able to see. How many other high street brands take a similar responsible view? The coalition reports less happy stories. Here is a shocker to demonstrate the point further. One reported test case involves someone who lives near a pub and a Starbucks. Both establishments provide free wi-fi access to their customers. In the pub, where children are not admitted, the wi-fi is provided by O_2. In Starbucks, where children are allowed and encouraged to come in, the wi-fi is provided by BT Openzone. O₂’s wi-fi services do not allow any access to pornographic websites. In Starbucks anyone can have full access to anything the internet has to offer including the most obscene pornographic websites.

Surely it is disgraceful that BT and Starbucks continue this practice, even though the matter was raised with them more than a year ago. Three of BT’s competitors have in the mean time put blocks on access to this material. It does not speak well of the UK’s capacity for self regulation when such huge, prominent companies are unprepared to be very firm and to set an example with regard to access to pornography. Until recently I was not aware that Starbucks is so lax about this or that apparently it pays no tax in this country. I, for one, will never set foot in Starbucks again unless these issues are sorted out and put right promptly. It clearly needs to wake up and smell the coffee. I wonder if there is anything the Government can do—perhaps a letter reminding high street companies of their duties to protect our children.

Age verification, as has been said before, can be a problem at home, and we know why. Parents may do their best, or not, to ensure that children do not have access to unsuitable material online. Parents can be fooled and may not be as adept at using online services as their children. Not surprisingly, research shows that children with rules about personal supervision in the home are less likely to access the internet in their bedroom or via mobile telephone than those who do not have rules. The organisation CARE points out that a recent government consultation on parental controls suggests that only the proposed opt-in choice provides a comprehensive solution for online pornography. The result of that consultation, as has been mentioned before, has not, so far as I know, yet been published. I understand that BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Sky issued a code of practice in October 2011 so new customers have to choose whether they are going to use the free parental controls provided. Existing customers will be made aware of the parental controls once a year but will not be obliged to make any choices about them. Ofcom estimates that only 31% of parents have limited their child’s access to the internet on their mobile phone. This Bill would tighten up these situations and sets out statutory duties on internet providers to protect children from pornography.

It is possible to tackle this problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, suggested some of the ways and we need to consider others. It means that an external agency will need to be involved in examining the implementation of policy and in monitoring it, possibly Ofcom or the BBFC or the Independent Mobile Classification Body, which has a clear statement on the classification of material and an appeals mechanism.

The recent Ofcom report, Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes, which I referred to earlier, is useful and thorough. It emphasises that children, even those as young as three or four, are confident users of the media. Children of 12 and over are “prolific social networkers”—eight to 11 year-olds have an average of 92 friends, while 12 to 15 year-olds have an amazing 286 friends. I do not know how they keep up. The point of this is the extraordinary number of people they can share things with, and we know what implications that has for child protection.

Multitasking is also popular—for example, texting or browsing the internet while watching TV. This may all sound very daunting for us. I remember once trying to watch a European football cup match, sound turned down, while listening to a dramatisation of Ulysses. That was only two things and I was totally confused. This Bill is important in supporting child protection. I look forward to its progress.