Online Safety Bill (Third sitting)

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate - 3rd sitting
Thursday 26th May 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Kim Leadbeater]

Thank you.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

Q May I ask about anonymity? It is mentioned in the Bill, but only once. Do you think there is a need for more expansive coverage of this issue? Do you think people should be able to use the internet while remaining anonymous, and if not, to whom would users disclose their identity? Would it be to the platform, or would it be more publicly than that?

Stephen Kinsella: There are a few questions there, obviously. I should say that we are happy with the approach in the Bill. We always felt that focusing on anonymity was the wrong place to start. Instead, we thought that a positive right to be verified, and then a right to screen out replies and posts from unverified accounts, was the way to go.

In terms of who one should make the disclosure to, or who would provide the verification, our concern was always that we did not want to provide another trove of data that the platforms could use to target us with adverts and otherwise monetise. While we have tried to be agnostic on the solution—again, we welcome the approach in the Bill, which is more about principles and systems than trying to pick outcomes—there are third-party providers out there that could provide one-stop verification. Some of them, for instance, rely on the open banking principles. The good thing about the banks is that under law, under the payment services directive and others, we are the owners of our own data. It is a much greyer area whether we are the owners of the data that the social media platforms hold on us, so using that data that the banks have—there is a solution called One ID, for instance—they will provide verification, and you could then use that to open your social media accounts without having to give that data to the platforms.

I saw in the evidence given to you on Tuesday that it was claimed that 80% of users are reluctant to give their data to platforms. We were surprised by that, and so we looked at it. They chose their words carefully. They said users were reluctant to give their data to “certain websites”. What they meant was porn sites. In the polling they were referring to, the question was specifically about willingness to share data with porn sites, and people are, understandably, reluctant to do that. When using open banking or other systems, there are good third-party providers, I would suggest, for verification.

[Caroline Ansell]

Q May I ask a quick supplementary about positive verification, before others contribute? A contributor to a previous session said there was a reluctance—a genuinely held reluctance—by some to be verified. In that way, it suppressed democratic engagement. Do you recognise that as an issue or a fault line in the verification argument?

Stephen Kinsella: Very much not. We have conducted polling using YouGov. Compassion in Politics did polling using Opinium. The figures vary slightly, but at a minimum, two in three citizens—often four out of five citizens—are very willing to be verified and would like the opportunity to be verified if it meant that they could then screen out replies from unverified accounts. I would say there is a weight of evidence on this from the polling. By the way, we would be very happy to conduct further polling, and we would be very happy to consult with the Committee on the wording of the questions that should be put, if that would be helpful, but I think we are quite confident what the response would be.

Liron Velleman: We set two clear tests for the situation on anonymity on platforms. First, will it harm the ability of some groups in society to have freedom of speech online? We are concerned that verification could harm the ability of LGBT people and domestic abuse survivors to use the platforms in the full ways they wish to. For example, if a constituent who is, say, a domestic abuse survivor or LGBT, wished to get in touch with you but was not verified on the platform, it would be one restriction that you would not be able to get around if you chose to change your settings.

[Caroline Ansell]

Q Would that be an argument for their identity verification being at platform level, rather than any wider public identity?

Liron Velleman: That could be very possible. One of our key questions is whether verification would mean that you had to use your real name on the platform or whether you had to verify that you were a person who was using a platform, but could then use a pseudonym on the front face of the website. I could sign up and say, “Here is my ID for the platform verification”, but if I did not wish to use my name, in order to protect my actual identity publicly on the platform, I could choose not to but still be verified as a real person. It would be different to having to have my name, Liron Velleman, as the user for Facebook or Twitter or any other platform.

The second test for us is whether it is going to make a real difference to reducing online harm. With a lot of the harm we see, people are very happy to put their names to the racism, misogyny and sexism and homophobia that they put online. We would not want to see a huge focus on anonymity, whereby we “ended” anonymity online, and yet online harm continued to propagate. We believe it would still continue, and we would not want people to be disappointed that that had not completely solved the issue. Of course, there are a huge number of anonymous accounts online that carry out abuse. Anything we can do to reduce that is welcome, but we do not see it as the silver bullet that could end racism online.

Stephen Kinsella: Obviously, we have not suggested that there is a silver bullet. We are talking about responding to what users want. A lot of users want the ability to say that they do not want to interact with people who are not using their real name. That does not mean that one could not envisage other levels of filter. You could have a different filter that said, “I am happy to interact with people who are verified to be real, but I don’t require that they have given their name”. The technology exists there, certainly to provide a menu of solutions. If you could only have one, we happen to think ours is the best, and that the evidence shows it would reduce a significant amount of disinformation spread and, certainly, abuse.

Danny Stone: I think one issue will be Ofcom’s ability to ensure consistency in policing. It is very difficult, actually, to find out where crimes have happened and who an individual is. Sometimes, the police have the power to compel the revelation of identity. The way the platforms respond is, I think, patchy, so Ofcom’s position in its guidance here will be pretty important.

[The Chair]

Thank you. We have time for a question from Navendu Mishra before we bring the Minister in.