Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she is taking steps to assess the effectiveness of (a) age verification tools, (b) age estimation tools and (c) other emerging technologies; and if she will take steps to include provisions in the Online Safety Bill to require the use of parental controls to help protect children online.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Online Safety Bill concluded parliamentary passage on 19 September. The Bill introduces a duty on Ofcom to produce and publish a report on in scope providers’ use of age verification and age estimation technologies. This must be done within 18 months of the first date on which the duties relating to children’s safety and to regulated provider pornographic content are in force. This report must assess how effective the use of age verification and age estimation has been for the purpose of compliance with the duties set out in the Bill.
The Online Safety Bill is technology neutral in its approach; however, in-scope services must be able to demonstrate how they are complying with the duties set out in the Bill. This includes ensuring and demonstrating that any emerging technologies they use are effective in fulfilling their duties.
While the Bill does not mandate the use of parental controls, Ofcom will set out the steps that providers can take to comply with the child safety duties in codes of practice.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent progress she has made towards the Government's target of spending £20 billion of funding from the public purse on R&D by 2024-25.
Answered by George Freeman
This Government has recommitted to increasing public expenditure on R&D to £20 billion per annum by 2024-25. This represents an increase of around a third from 2021-22.
Since its creation, DSIT has made strong progress towards optimising public R&D investment in line with Government’s strategic priorities. Our Science and Technology Framework was announced alongside a raft of new measures to support the UK’s world-leading position across the technologies of tomorrow. These include £100 million in initial start-up funding for the Foundation Model Taskforce to lead vital AI safety research and £121 million to improve commercial clinical trials as part of the £650 million ‘Life Sci for Growth’ package.