Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge

The Online Safety Act gives online user-to-user services new duties to implement systems and processes to reduce the risks of their services being used to facilitate certain ‘priority’ kinds of offending. It also requires providers to take down illegal content when it does appear. These duties extend to intimate image abuse (IIA) content. This is a priority kind of offending under the Act. Ofcom will have strong enforcement powers where platforms fail to comply with their duties for IIA content. It can impose significant fines and, where appropriate, business disruption measures on non-compliant platforms. It can fine companies up to £18 million or 10% of their qualifying global annual revenue.

As part of the statutory relationships and health education in primary schools and relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in secondary schools, pupils are taught about online safety and harms.

The statutory guidance for relationships education for primary school can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-education-primary.

The statutory guidance for RSHE for secondary school can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-and-sex-education-rse-secondary.

This guidance includes being taught about what positive, healthy and respectful online relationships look like, the effects of pupils’ online actions on others, how to recognise and display respectful behaviour online, and where to get help and support for issues that occur online.

Teaching about online safety also complements the computing curriculum, which covers the principles of online safety at all key stages, with progression in the content to reflect the different and escalating risks that pupils face. The statutory guidance for the computing curriculum can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-computing-programmes-of-study.

The guidance ‘Teaching online safety in schools’ sets out how to teach about all aspects of internet safety in a coordinated and coherent way across the curriculum, and can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teaching-online-safety-in-schools.

The department is currently reviewing the RSHE statutory guidance. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has been clear that children’s wellbeing must be at the heart of this guidance for schools and as such the government will look carefully at the consultation responses, discuss with stakeholders and consider the relevant evidence before setting out next steps. As part of the review, the department will consider whether additional or revised content should be included in the guidance, including content regarding online safety and harm.

The Curriculum and Assessment Review is also looking at the curriculum as a whole and how to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. The government‘s ambition is for a broad, rich and cutting-edge curriculum that equips children and young people with the essential knowledge and skills required to thrive as citizens, in work and throughout life.

In addition, the statutory ‘Keeping children safe in education’ guidance which all schools and colleges must have regard to when drawing up and implementing their own safeguarding policies has been strengthened with regards to online safety in recent years. Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure online safety is a running and interrelated theme whilst devising and implementing their whole school or college approach to safeguarding and related policies and procedures, including doing all that they reasonably can to limit children’s exposure to harmful online content on the school’s or college’s IT system.

Whilst the National Health Service does not offer bespoke mental health services to survivors of image-based abuse, anyone experiencing mental health problems as a result of such abuse is advised to seek help from their local general practitioner, NHS Talking Therapies services or through NHS 111.

Further advice for survivors is available from the Revenge Porn Helpline and other sources of emotional support for all types of abuse can be obtained through the Hub of Hope website, both in an online-only format.

The Home Office is providing £150,000 to the Revenge Porn Helpline in 2024/5. They provide high-quality support and advice to victims of non-consensual intimate image sharing and raise awareness of intimate image abuse nationally and internationally. Since its establishment in 2015, the Helpline has demonstrated an ability to successfully remove from circulation 90% of the images reported to the Helpline by victims.

Intimate image-based abuse can have a devastating impact on the lives of its victims and this Government will treat violence against women and girls (VAWG), online and offline, as a national emergency.

The College of Policing set the curriculum for policing which includes educational outcomes on image-based abuse. At present, individual forces choose how to deliver this training, often by commissioning local experts and support services.

The Government is determined that every force must have the right specialist capability to investigate these crimes properly. We will therefore work closely with the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs' Council to strengthen the training for officers on VAWG.

Under the Online Safety Act 2023, it is an offence to send, share or threaten to share “deepfake” pornography. This is part of a new “base offence” that criminalises someone for sharing an intimate image without consent. This Government has committed to banning the creation of sexually explicit “deepfake” images.