Online Safety Bill

David Davis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman]

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely correct. Whether it involves a particularly right-wing cause or antisemitism—or, indeed, dieting content that drags people into something more radical in relation to eating disorders—the bubble mentality created by these algorithms massively increases the risk of radicalisation, and we therefore have an increased duty to protect people.

As I have said, I am pleased to see the positive changes that have been made as a result of Opposition pressure and the uncompromising efforts of those in the House of Lords, especially Baroness Kidron, who has been nothing short of tenacious. Throughout the time in which we have been discussing the Bill, I have spoken to Members of both Houses about it, and it has been very unusual to come across anyone who knows what they are talking about, and, in particular, has the incredible depth of knowledge, understanding and wisdom shown by Baroness Kidron. I was able to speak to her as someone who practically grew up on the internet—we had it at home when I was eight—but she knew far more about it than I did. I am extremely pleased that the Government have worked with her to improve the Bill, and have accepted that she has a huge breadth of knowledge. She managed to do what we did not quite manage to do in this House, although hopefully we laid the foundations.

I want to refer to a number of points that were mentioned by the Minister and are also mentioned in the letters that the Government provided relating to the Lords amendments. Algorithmic scrutiny is incredibly important, and I, along with other Members, have raised it a number of times—again, in connection with concern about radicalisation. Some organisations have been doing better things recently. For instance, someone who searches for something may begin to go down a rabbit hole. Some companies are now putting up a flag, for instance a video, suggesting that users are going down a dark hole and should look at something a bit lighter, and directing them away from the autoplaying of the more radical content. If all organisations, or at least a significant number—particularly those with high traffic—can be encouraged to take such action rather than allowing people to be driven to more extreme content, that will be a positive step.

I was pleased to hear about the upcoming researcher access report, and about the report on app stores. I asked a previous Minister about app stores a year or so ago, and the Minister said that they were not included, and that was the end of it. Given the risk that is posed by app stores, the fact that they were not categorised as user-to-user content concerned me greatly. Someone who wants to put something on an Apple app store has to jump through Apple’s hoops. The content is not owned by the app store, and the same applies to some of the material on the PlayStation store. It is owned by the person who created the content, and it is therefore user-to-user content. In some cases, it is created by one individual. There is no ongoing review of that. Age-rating is another issue: app stores choose whatever age they happen to decide is the most important. Some of the dating apps, such as match.com, have been active in that regard, and have made it clear that their platforms are not for under-16s or under-18s, while the app store has rated the content as being for a younger age than the users’ actual age. That is of concern, especially if the companies are trying to improve age-rating.

On the subject of age rating, I am pleased to see more in the Bill about age assurance and the frameworks. I am particularly pleased to see what is going to happen in relation to trying to stop children being able to access pornography. That is incredibly important but it had been missing from the Bill. I understand that Baroness Floella Benjamin has done a huge amount of work on pushing this forward and ensuring that parliamentarians are briefed on it, and I thank her for the work that she has done. Human trafficking has also been included. Again, that was something that we pushed for, and I am glad to see that it has been put on the face of the Bill.

I want to talk briefly about the review mechanisms, then I will go on to talk about end-to-end encryption. I am still concerned that the review mechanisms are not strong enough. We have pushed to have a parliamentary Committee convened, for example, to review this legislation. This is the fastest moving area of life. Things are changing so dramatically. How many people in here had even heard of ChatGPT a year and a half ago? How many people had used a virtual reality headset? How many people had accessed Rec Room of any of the other VR systems? I understand that the Government have genuinely tried their best to make the Bill as future-proof as possible, but we have no parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms written in. I am not trying to undermine the work of the Committee on this—I think it is incredibly important—but Select Committees are busy and they have no legislative power in this regard. If the Government had written in a review, that would have been incredibly helpful.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a very good speech. When I first came to this House, which was rather a long time ago now, there was a Companies Act every year, because company law was changing at the time, as was the nature of post-war capitalism. It seems to me that there is a strong argument for an annual Act on the handling and management of the internet. What she is saying is exactly right, and that is probably where we will end up.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I completely support the right hon. Member’s point—I would love to see this happening on an annual basis. I am sure that the Ministers who have shepherded the Bill through would be terrified of that, and that the Government team sitting over there are probably quaking in their boots at the suggestion, but given how fast this moves, I think that this would be incredibly important.

The Government’s record on post-implementation reviews of legislation is pretty shoddy. If you ask Government Departments what percentage of legislation they have put through a post-implementation review in the timeline they were supposed to, they will say that it is very small. Some Departments are a bit better than others, but given the number of reshuffles there have been, some do not even know which pieces of legislation they are supposed to be post-implementation reviewing. I am concerned that this legislation will get lost, and that there is no legislative back-up to any of the mechanisms for reviewing it. The Minister has said that it will be kept under review, but can we have some sort of governmental commitment that an actual review will take place, and that legislation will be forthcoming if necessary, to ensure that the implementation of this Bill is carried out as intended? We are not necessarily asking the Government to change it; we are just asking them to cover all the things that they intend it to cover.

On end-to-end encryption, on child sexual exploitation and abuse materials, and on the last resort provider—I have been consistent with every Minister I have spoken to across the Dispatch Box and every time I have spoken to hon. Members about this—when there is any use of child sexual exploitation material or child sexual abuse material, we should be able to require the provider to find it. That absolutely trumps privacy. The largest increase in child sexual abuse material is in self-generated content. That is horrific. We are seeing a massive increase in that number. We need providers to be able to search—using the hash numbers that they can categorise images with, or however they want to do it—for people who are sharing this material in order to allow the authorities to arrest them and put them behind bars so that they cannot cause any more harm to children. That is more important than any privacy concerns. Although Ministers have not put it in the Bill until this point, they have, to their credit, been clear that that is more important than any privacy concerns, and that protecting children trumps those concerns when it comes to abuse materials and exploitation. I am glad to see that that is now written into the Bill; it is important that it was not just stated at the Dispatch Box, even though it was mentioned by a number of Members.