Online Safety Bill [HL]

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Friday 17th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for her consistency of approach to bringing the attention of your Lordships’ House to the important issue of online safety for children. We are all aware of the advantages the virtual world offers but some are prepared to challenge this and to make mischief. This Bill needs to mean what it says on the tin; that is, access to any internet-enabled platform in the virtual world should have the right protection and foundation in place to prevent harm to our young people.

As Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, I am concerned about the many victims who fall prey to harmful material and predatory behaviour through online services. Children can access harmful content so easily online. This material might be accessed through computers, mobile phones, gaming systems or other internet-enabled devices, or through material made available through social networking sites, chat rooms, or other social media platforms. But regardless of where and how it is accessed, the bottom line is that our children need to be kept safe from harmful material and those who prey on them.

We have heard this week of the successes of protective filters that parents can apply on their home internet so that children cannot accidentally or even deliberately access adult content. This is a huge step forward. However, I remain concerned that there is a long way to go. Ofcom cannot be the sole enforcer of all internet providers. Its current regulatory role is difficult enough. I fear that to ask it, through this Bill, to regulate all internet service providers and mobile phone operators is to ask it to provide a regulatory role for the wider internet. We know only too well that to police the internet would be impossible. In fact, police officers up and down this country do tremendous work every day. What they see is truly unbelievable and harmful. We must thank them for everything they do to protect our society. We need to think about how the conditions we are attempting to place on internet service providers and other operators can be enforced and not just regulated.

Our children should be protected from harmful material but this needs to be holistic and about online safety for all harms and not simply about adult pornographic material. Our children can be harmed by so much more. By accessing certain material, children can easily become victims of crime. We have heard about child sexual exploitation and sexual grooming occurring online, and about children lured into accessing certain services or chat rooms and then being bullied, blackmailed, or exploited further. Our children need protecting from all this and parents have an important role to play, as do schools or other bodies. But can we fight for or demand more?

Children have much more technological knowledge than their parents. Despite our best efforts to introduce age verification processes and filters through this Bill, we need much more protection. We need our efforts to be well thought-out, future-proofed and conscious of the ways that these protections can be overcome or circumnavigated. So that we do not have these same discussions and debates time and again, we must keep up with technological changes.

Internet service providers will be integral in making sure that age verification controls work. The experience of the gambling industry has shown success with age verification controls but we have also seen, albeit a minority, some who find ways around these controls. I strongly believe in the spirit of this Bill and support the Government’s efforts, but for the sake of our children we need to take this further than pornographic material. Age restrictions should be considered for other harmful material; for example, extremist or offensive doctrine, certain chat rooms and other online opportunities where our children may be harmed. This will be a difficult and challenging task and I am aware of the progress that the Government have made so far. I commend the Minister because I know that she has the skills and talents, and that she does outstanding work and is very proactive in all sectors of the virtual world.

In the length of time given to two speakers in this important debate, a child will have been sexually groomed. This Bill cannot simply provide the perception that something is being done. We need a strong position on protecting our children and a clear method of enforcing that position. We need to move faster and smarter because the virtual world is catching up too quickly and we need to protect children now.