Online Safety Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to add my name to the Second Reading of such an important but complex Bill. There is very little time to speak on such positive and necessary legislation—200-plus clauses and 17 Schedules. But I know from experience of this Chamber that we will scrutinise every full stop to make it far better than when we received it.

While we must recognise that companies should have safeguarding policies and penalties in place, we should also never forget the lives of our young children, those who have been taken and the voices of bereaved families. They should be in the veins of this Bill right through to the end.

I say this as I remember that, in the trial following my husband Gary’s murder 15 years ago, some of the evidence shown was horrific violence downloaded on the offenders’ phones. The content was so horrific that the judge laid it on file for whenever they had parole hearings. It showed injuries identical to those Gary received—kicking and punching injuries that those on trial thought were very funny, even when they watched it in the courtroom from the dock. I now have three daughters who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. I have to ensure that they never forget their father, and do not just remember him lying on the ground that August evening.

In my role as Victims’ Commissioner, for seven years I had the pleasure and honour of listening to many victims and survivors of horrific crimes. Time is short but I would like to mention the mother of Breck. Her son was beautiful, bright and bubbly, only to become removed from any emotion and from his family. Breck was groomed online by an 18 year-old man who ran the internet gaming server that Breck and his schoolfriends used every day. Our children are most likely using Xbox consoles and have contact with these people from their own homes. The groomer used lies, manipulation and false promises to gain Breck’s trust. Despite many attempts by the family to stop Breck’s communication with his groomer, he ignored the safety advice he had been given by his family and was sadly lured to the groomer’s flat. On 17 February 2014, Breck was brutally murdered by this online groomer. So, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and all those bereaved families who have worked tirelessly to make sure that the Bill has teeth and power to protect their loved ones, have my full support.

I thank Barnardo’s, the NSPCC, Refuge and the Centre for Women’s Justice for their briefing. My interest will be in the work and roles of the Victims’ Commissioner and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, and the code of practice to protect the VAWG sector in light of women being 27 times more likely to be abused and harassed. I will be supporting my noble friend Lord Bethell’s amendment on age verification, regarding pornographic content that children can access. We must also ensure that, while this is for the professionals and absolutely about penalising the guilty, we must never forget the families who have to live, every day, through the hardship and heartbreak of losing a loved one. We must ensure that there is a channel to protect their families and support them to have a better life in memory of their loved ones.

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 56 proposes a pathway towards setting up an independent ombudsman for the social media space. It is in my name, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his support. For reasons I will go into, my amendment is a rather transparent and blatant attempt to bridge a gap with the Government, who have a sceptical position on this issue, and I hope that the amendment in its present form will prove more attractive to them than our original proposal.

At the same time, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, has tabled an amendment on this issue, proposing an independent appeals mechanism

“to provide impartial out of court resolutions for individual users of regulated services”.

Given that this is almost exactly what I want to see in place—as was set out in my original amendment, which was subsequently rubbished by the Government—I have also signed the noble Baroness’s amendment, and I very much look forward to her speech. The Government have a choice.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, also has amendments in this group, although they are pointing in a slightly different direction. I will not speak to them at this point in the proceedings, although I make it absolutely clear that, while I look forward to hearing her arguments —she is always very persuasive—I support the Bill’s current proposals on super-complaints.

Returning to the question of why we think the Bill should make provision for an independent complaints system or ombudsman, I suppose that, logically, we ought first to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, then listen to the Government’s response, which presumably will be negative. My compromise amendment could then be considered and, I hope, win the day with support from all around the Committee—in my dreams.

We have heard the Government’s arguments already. As the Minister said in his introduction to the Second Reading debate all those months ago on 1 February 2023, he was unsympathetic. At that time, he said:

“Ombudsman services in other sectors are expensive, often underused and primarily relate to complaints which result in financial compensation. We find it difficult to envisage how an ombudsman service could function in this area, where user complaints are likely to be complex and, in many cases, do not have the impetus of financial compensation behind them”.—[Official Report, 1/2/23; col. 690.]


Talk about getting your retaliation in first.

My proposal is based on the Joint Committee’s unanimous recommendation:

“The role of the Online Safety Ombudsman should be created to consider complaints about actions by higher risk service providers where either moderation or failure to address risks leads to … demonstrable harm (including to freedom of expression) and recourse to other routes of redress have not resulted in a resolution”.


The report goes on to say that there could

“be an option in the Bill to extend the remit of the Ombudsman to lower risk providers. In addition … the Ombudsman would as part of its role i) identify issues in individual companies and make recommendations to improve their complaint handling and ii) identify systemic industry wide issues and make recommendations on regulatory action needed to remedy them. The Ombudsman should have a duty to gather data and information and report it to Ofcom. It should be an ‘eligible entity’ to make super-complaints”

possible. It is a very complicated proposal. Noble Lords will understand from the way the proposal is framed that it would provide a back-up to the primary purpose of complaints, which must be to the individual company and the service it is providing. But it would be based on a way of learning from experience, which it would build up as time went on.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will flesh out the Joint Committee’s thinking on this issue when he comes to speak, but I make the point that other countries preparing legislation on online safety are in fact building in independent complaints systems; we are an outlier on this. Australia, Canada and others have already legislated. Another very good example nearer to hand is in Ireland. We are very lucky to have with us today the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, a member of the expert panel whose advice to the Irish Government to set up such a system in her excellent report in May 2022 has now been implemented. I hope that she will share her thoughts about these amendments later in the debate.

Returning to the Government’s reservations about including an ombudsman service in the Bill, I make the following points based on my proposals in Amendment 56. There need not be any immediate action. The amendment as currently specified requires Ofcom to review complaints systems set up by the companies under Clause 17 as to their effectiveness and efficiency. It asks Ofcom to take other evidence into account and then, and only then, to take the decision of whether to set up an ombudsman system. If there were no evidence of a need for such a service, it would not happen.

As for the other reservations raised by the Minister when he spoke at Second Reading, he said:

“Ombudsman services in other sectors are expensive”.


We agree, but we assume that this would be on a cost recovery model, as other Ofcom services are funded in that way. The primary focus will always be resolving complaints about actions or inactions of particular companies in the companies’ own redress systems, and Ofcom can always keep that under review.

He said that they are “often underused”. Since we do not know at the start what the overall burden will be, we think that the right solution is to build up slowly and let Ofcom decide. There are other reasons why it makes sense to prepare for such a service, and I will come to these in a minute.

He said that other ombudsman services

“primarily relate to complaints which result in financial compensation”.

That is true, but the evidence from other reports, and that we received in the Joint Committee, was that most complainants want non-financial solutions: they want egregious material taken down or to ensure that certain materials are not seen. They are not after the money. Where a company is failing to deliver on those issues in their own complaints system, to deny genuine complainants an appeal to an independent body seems perverse and not in accordance with natural justice.

He said that

“user complaints are likely to be complex”.—[Official Report, 1/2/23; col. 690.]

Yes, they probably are, but that seems to be an argument for an independent appeals body, not against it.

To conclude, we agree that Ofcom should not be the ombudsman and that the right approach is for Ofcom to set up the system as and when it judges that it would be appropriate. We do not want Ofcom to be swamped with complaints from users of regulated services, who, for whatever reason, have not been satisfied by the response of the individual companies or to complex cases, or seek system-wide solutions. But Ofcom needs to know what is happening on the ground, across the sector, as well as in each of the regulated companies, and it needs to be kept aware of how the system as a whole is performing. The relationship between the FCA and the Financial Ombudsman Service is a good model here. Indeed, the fact that some of the responsibilities to be given to Ofcom in the Bill will give rise to complaints to the FOS suggests that there would be good sense in aligning these services right from the start.

We understand that the experience from Australia is that the existence of an independent complaints function can strengthen the regulatory functions. There is also evidence that the very existence of an independent complaints mechanism can provide reassurances to users that their online safety is being properly supported. I beg to move.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have spoken in Committee. I know we have 10 days, but it seems that we will go even further because this is so important. I will speak to Amendments 250A and 250B.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and, of course— if I may be permitted to say so—the amazing noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who is an absolute whizz on this, for placing their names on these amendments, as well as the 5Rights Foundation, the Internet Watch Foundation and the UK Safer Internet Centre for their excellent briefings. I have spoken to these charities, and the work they do is truly amazing. I do not think that the Bill will recognise just how much time and energy they give to support families and individuals. Put quite simply, we can agree that services’ internal complaint mechanisms are failing.

Let me tell your Lordships about Harry. Harry is an autistic teenager who was filmed by a member of the public in a local fast-food establishment when he was dysregulated and engaging in aggressive behaviour. This footage was shared out of context across social media, with much of the response online labelling Harry as a disruptive teenager who was engaging in unacceptable aggression and vandalising public property. This was shared thousands of times over the course of a few weeks. When Harry and his mum reported it to the social media platforms, they were informed that it did not violate community guidelines and that there was a public interest in the footage remaining online. The family, quite rightly, felt powerless. Harry became overwhelmed at the negative response to the footage and the comments made about his behaviour. He became withdrawn and stopped engaging. He then tried to take his own life.

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[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I do not know about that last point. I was going to say that I am very happy to meet the noble Lord to discuss it. It seems to me to come down to a matter of timing and the timing of the first review. As I say, I am delighted to meet the noble Lord. By the way, the relevant shortest period is two years not three, as he said.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

Following on from my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, can I just say to the Minister that I would really welcome all of us having a meeting? As I am listening to this, I am thinking that three to five years is just horrific for the families. This Bill has gone on for so long to get where we are today. We are losing sight of humanity here and the moral compass of protecting human lives. For whichever Government is in place in three to five years to make the decision to say it does not work is absolutely shameful. Nobody in the Government will be accountable and yet for that family, that single person may commit suicide. We have met the bereaved families, so I say to the Minister that we need to go round the table and look at this again. I do not think it is acceptable to say that there is this timeline, this review, for the Secretary of State when we are dealing with young lives. It is in the public interest to get this Bill correct as it navigates its way back to the House of Commons in a far better state than how it arrived.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I would love the noble Viscount to answer my very specific question about who the Government think families should turn to when they have exhausted the complaints system in the next three to five years. I say that as someone who has witnessed successive Secretaries of State promising families that this Bill would sort this out. Yes?

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 22nd June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support this group of amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and other noble Lords. I, too, acknowledge the campaign group Bereaved Families for Online Safety, which has worked so closely with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, 5Rights and the NSPCC to bring these essential changes forward.

Where a child has died, sadly, and social media is thought to have played a part, families and coroners have faced years of stonewalling, often never managing to access data or information relevant to that death; this adds greatly to their grief and delays the finding of some kind of closure. We must never again see a family treated as Molly Russell’s family was treated, when it took five years of campaigning to get partial sight of material that the coroner found so distressing that he concluded that it contributed to her death in a more than minimal way; nor can it be acceptable for a company to refuse to co-operate, as in the case of Frankie Thomas, where Wattpad failed to provide the material requested by the coroner on the grounds that it is not based within the UK’s jurisdiction. With the threat of a fine of only £1,000 to face, companies feel little need to comply. These amendments would mean that tech companies now had to comply with Ofcom’s information notices or face a fine of up to 10% of their global revenue.

Coroners’ powers must be strengthened by giving Ofcom the duty and power to require relevant information from companies in cases where there is reason to suspect that a regulated service provider may hold information relevant to a child’s death. Companies may not want to face up to the role they have played in the death of a child by their irresponsible recommending and pushing of violent, sexual, depressive and pro-suicide material through algorithmic design, but they need to be made to answer when requested by a coroner on behalf of a bereaved family.

Amendment 215 requires a named senior manager, a concept that I am thankful is already enshrined in the Bill, to receive and respond to an information notice from Ofcom to ensure that a child’s information, including their interactions and behaviour and the actions of the regulated service provider, is preserved and made available. This could make a profound difference to how families will be treated by these platforms in future. Too often in the past, they have been evasive and unco-operative, adding greatly to the inconsolable grief of such bereaved parents. As Molly Russell's father Ian said:

“Having lived through Molly’s extended inquest, we think it is important that in future, after the death of a child, authorities’ access to data becomes … a matter of course”


and

“A more compassionate, efficient and speedy process”.


I was going to ask the Government to accept these amendments but, having listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, I am looking forward to their proposals. We must ensure that a more humane route for families and coroners to access data relating to the death of a child is at last available in law.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments standing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and other noble Lords. I have listened to noble Lords, so I am not going to repeat what has been said. I pay my respects to the family because as someone who is still going through the criminal justice system, I absolutely feel the anguish of these families.

While we are talking about a digital platform, we are also talking about human lives, and that is what we have to remain focused on. I am not a techno, and all these words in the digital world sound like a lot of Japanese to me. I am not ignorant about what noble Lords are saying, but it has made me realise that, while we have gone forward, for a lot of people and families it still feels like wading through jelly.

I want to speak about how the families will feel and how they will connect through all of these gateways to get what they should quite rightly have about their loved ones’ lives and about what has been said about them online. Surely the platforms should have a duty of care, then perhaps we would not be here discussing these amendments. Noble Lords have spoken about the technical aspects of these amendments. By that, we mean data and the role of the coroner. As a former victims’ commissioner, I had many discussions with the Chief Coroner about other victims who have suffered loss as well. I think that people do not understand how victims’ families feel in the courtroom because you feel alone, and I imagine there are more legal aspects from these mega companies than these families can afford.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a strong and moving debate, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for bringing forward these amendments and for the way she began it. I also echo the thanks that the noble Baroness and others have given to the families of Breck Bednar, Sophie Parkinson, Molly Russell, Olly Stephens, Frankie Thomas and all the young people whose names she rightly held in remembrance at the beginning of this debate. There are too many others who find themselves in the same position. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, is right to pay tribute to their tirelessness in campaigning, given the emotional toll that we know it has on them. I know that they have followed the sometimes arcane processes of legislation and, as my noble friend Lady Morgan said, we all look forward to the Bill becoming an Act of Parliament so that it can make a difference to families who we wish to spare from the heartache they have had.

Every death is sorrowful, but the death of a child is especially heartbreaking. The Government take the issues of access to information relating to a deceased child very seriously. We have undertaken extensive work across government and beyond to understand the problems that parents, and coroners who are required to investigate such deaths, have faced in the past in order to bring forward appropriate solutions. I am pleased to say that, as a result of that work, and thanks to the tireless campaigning of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and our discussions with those who, very sadly, have first-hand experience of these problems, we will bring forward a package of measures on Report to address the issues that parents and coroners have faced. Our amendments have been devised in close consultation with the noble Baroness and bereaved families. I hope the measures will rise to the expectations they rightly have and that they will receive their support.

The package of amendments will ensure that coroners have access to the expertise and information they need to conduct their investigations, including information held by technology companies, regardless of size, and overseas services such as Wattpad, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Healy of Primrose Hill, in her contribution. This includes information about how a child interacted with specific content online as well as the role of wider systems and processes, such as algorithms, in promoting it. The amendments we bring forward will also help to ensure that the process for accessing data is more straightforward and humane. The largest companies must ensure that they are transparent with parents about their options for accessing data and respond swiftly to their requests. We must ensure that companies cannot stonewall parents who have lost a child and that those parents are treated with the humanity and compassion they deserve.

I take the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, rightly makes: small does not mean safe. All platforms will be required to comply with Ofcom’s requests for information about a deceased child’s online activity. That will be backed by Ofcom’s existing enforcement powers, so that where a company refuses to provide information without a valid excuse it may be subject to enforcement action, including sanctions on senior managers. Ofcom will also be able to produce reports for coroners following a Schedule 5 request on matters relevant to an investigation or inquest. This could include information about a company’s systems and processes, including how algorithms have promoted specific content to a child. This too applies to platforms of any size and will ensure that coroners are provided with information and expertise to assist them in understanding social media.

Where this Bill cannot solve an issue, we are exploring alternative avenues for improving outcomes as well. For example, the Chief Coroner has committed to consider issuing non-legislative guidance and training for coroners about social media, with the offer of consultation with experts.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend. On the coroners’ training and national guidelines, the Chief Coroner has no powers across the nation over all the coroners. How is he or she going to check that the coroners are keeping up with their training and are absolutely on the ball? The Chief Coroner has no powers across the country and everything happens in London; we are talking about outside London. How can we know that no other family has to suffer, considering that we have this legislation?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend rightly pulled me up for not responding to her letter as speedily as we have been dealing with the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. We have had some useful meetings with Ministers at the Ministry of Justice, which the noble Baroness has attended. I would be very happy to provide some detail on this to my noble friend—I am conscious of her experience as Victims’ Commissioner—either in writing or to organise a briefing if she would welcome that.

The noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, rightly raised data protection. Where Ofcom and companies are required to respond to coroners’ requests for information, they are already required to comply with personal data protection legislation, which protects the privacy of other users. This may include the redaction of information that would identify other users. We are also exploring whether guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office could support technology companies to understand how data protection law applies in such cases.

The noble Lord mentioned the challenges of potential conflicts of law around the world. Where there is a conflict of laws—for example, due to data protection laws in other jurisdictions—Ofcom will need to consider the best way forward on a case-by-case basis. For example, it may request alternative information which could be disclosed, and which would provide insight into a particular issue. We will seek to engage our American counterparts to understand any potential and unintended barriers created by the US Stored Communications Act. I can reassure the noble Lord that these matters are in our mind.

We are also aware of the importance of data preservation to both coroners and bereaved parents. The Government agree with the principle of ensuring that these are preserved. We will be working towards solving this in the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. In addition, we will explore whether there are further options to improve outcomes for parents in that Bill as well. I want to assure noble Lords and the families watching this debate closely that we will do all we can to deliver the necessary changes to give coroners and parents the information that they seek and to ensure a more straightforward and humane process in the future.

I turn in detail to the amendments the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, brought forward. First, Amendments 215 and 216 include new requirements on Ofcom, seeking to ensure that coroners and parents can obtain data from social media companies after the death of a child. Amendment 215 would give Ofcom the ability to impose senior management liability on an individual in cases where a coroner has issued a notice requiring evidence to be provided in an inquest into the death of a child. Amendment 216 would put Ofcom’s powers at the disposal of a coroner or close relatives of a deceased child so that Ofcom would be obliged to require information from platforms or other persons about the social media activity of a deceased child. It also requires service providers to provide a point of contact. Amendments 198 and 199 are consequential to this.

As I said, we agree with the intent of the noble Baroness’s amendments and we will deal with it in the package that we will bring forward before Report. Our changes to the Bill will seek to ensure that Ofcom has the powers it needs to support coroners and their equivalents in Scotland, so that they have access to the information they need to conduct investigations into a child’s death where social media may have played a part.