Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The rules apply to content that is accessed by users in the UK; it does not matter where in the world that is coming from. For example, we have recommended in the report that frauds and scams should be within scope, including when they appear in adverts as well as in organic postings. Google is already working with the Financial Conduct Authority to limit people advertising unless they are FCA-accredited, but what about organisations elsewhere in the world that are not accredited? They should clearly be in scope as well. We are asking the companies to take responsibility for content that is accessed by users in the UK, and they will have to comply with UK law if we set that law. We can see how this is already being done in legislation elsewhere in the world, and we can set laws, even for global companies, that have to be applied for users in the UK.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

With reports that children as young as nine years old have smartphones, that the internet is essential to their learning and that their homework is almost all done online from the age of six, can the hon. Gentleman tell the House what will be done to filter out the trash to ensure that those smartphones do not turn into a tool to disrupt our children’s healthy development?

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the impact on children. Important work on this has already been done and this Government have passed legislation on the design of services, which is known as the age-appropriate design code. In our report and in the Bill, we stress the importance of risk assessment by the regulator of the different services that are offered, and of the principles of safety by design, particularly in regard to services that are accessed by children and products that are designed for and used by children. I spoke earlier about the regulator’s power to seek data and information from companies about younger users and to challenge companies whose platform policy is that those under 13 cannot access their content and ask whether they have research showing that they know people under that age are using it but allow them to keep their accounts open anyway. Keeping children off the systems that are not designed for them, and from which they are supposed to be deliberately excluded, could be an important role for the regulator to take on.