Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help protect children from (a) deception, (b) bullying, (c) abuse and (d) harmful content online.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Our priority is the implementation of the Online Safety Act so children benefit from its protections.
The Act requires services to protect users from illegal content. Companies will also need to assess whether their service is likely to be accessed by children and provide safety measures to protect them from harmful and age-inappropriate content and activity, such as abuse, bullying, and content that promotes eating disorders or self-harm. Measures include using age assurance and changing their algorithms to filter out harmful content.
The illegal content duties are now in effect and the child safety duties will be enforceable by this summer.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help reduce misogynistic content online.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act requires in-scope services to proactively tackle the most harmful illegal content, including illegal misogyny.
Where this type of abuse is not illegal, services likely to be accessed by children must provide safety measures to protect them from harmful and age-inappropriate content and activity, including content which is hateful and abusive. Category 1 services will also need to remove legal misogynistic content, where it is prohibited in their terms of service.
The Act requires Ofcom, the regulator, to publish guidance about protecting women and girls online, which it published in draft for consultation on 25 February.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department taking to make government digital services as accessible as possible, including for those without strong digital skills.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government wants to put digital inclusion at the heart of how we deliver better designed, time-saving public services, to ensure as many people as possible can access public services digitally. Our ambition is for everyone in the UK to have the access, skills, support and confidence to participate in our modern digital society, whatever their circumstances.
On accessibility, there is a globally recognised standard for accessibility for Web Content, and though digital accessibility is an important part of designing an inclusive service, meeting the standards does not guarantee an inclusive service. We will be exploring how to extend the scope of the standards beyond central government into the wider public sector and looking at revising them to include inclusive service design.
Promoting digital inclusion is a priority for this Government, and we will be working closely with key partners in charities, businesses and local authorities to make sure that no one is left without the tools to engage fully in society. We hope to announce more on this soon.