Digital Economy Bill

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I will make brief general remarks before focusing on Part 3, which deals with online pornography. When I was a student, 45 years ago, I invested in a dictionary, which I still have. The word “internet” did not appear in it and “digital” meant “pertaining to the fingers”. “Computer” was a mere derivative of the verb “to compute” and meant a calculator. At the time, I was completing a chemistry degree and learning early computer language such as ALGOL and FORTRAN, which I assume are as extinct now as we think dinosaurs are extinct.

Having abandoned my scientific career in order to pursue a vocation to the ordained ministry—God knows why, as I used to say—my involvement with the developing digital age was somewhat limited. But its opportunities and ambiguities were brought home to me in the early 1990s when, as vicar of Beverley Minster in East Yorkshire, I was approached by one of the emerging mobile networks, Orange, to allow a transmitter on one of the towers. We may have been the first church to reach such an agreement, through a rather complex process, but we did, provided that the transmitter and receiver simply looked like a flagpole, which they did and still do. The annual index-linked rental was useful for other purposes. Some people were opposed to it on the grounds of, “Goodness knows what might be transmitted through the church tower”, including an early sense that pornography or other unsavoury material might be transmitted, while others saw the benefits. I remember one older lady saying to me, “I will now happily go out in my car because if I break down I can call for help from the car itself”. That duality has remained with me over the years, and not least as the power of digital communication has expanded in such unprecedented and unimaginable ways.

Knowing how to provide regulation while not stifling the inherent creativity that the digital revolution is bringing is by no means easy. There are also profound issues of privacy that arise regularly, and which we confronted directly when dealing with the Investigatory Powers Bill. A little over a year ago I introduced a balloted debate in your Lordships’ House on the impact of pornography on society, and we had a good discussion. Two distinguished social scientists who are well known to the House, the noble Lords, Lord Giddens and Lord Parekh, urged caution in coming to any conclusions about the impact of pornography given that the digital age is transforming human experience in general and human sexual experience in particular in unprecedented ways that we are only just beginning to understand. I quote the noble Lord, Lord Giddens:

“If children are shielded too much, and for too long, they may not be able to cope when plunged into the maelstrom that is sexuality today”.—[Official Report, 5/11/15; col. 1774.]

Interestingly, the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, parted company with his noble friend Lord Giddens on that point:

“Children are not in a position to exercise personal autonomy. They cannot be entrusted with the liberty we would entrust to adults. They are … not able to distinguish between real life and fantasy, and they can easily be persuaded to do … things that ought not to be done … They need to be protected against certain kinds of manipulation and exploitation”.—[Official Report, 5/11/15; col. 1783.]

That is why the Conservative manifesto contained a pledge to introduce secure age verification for access to pornographic material and why I support these provisions in the Bill, which have been so usefully strengthened during its passage through the other place with the insertion of Clauses 23 and 80. One of my own MPs from Cheshire, Mrs Fiona Bruce, played a key role in this, as I am very pleased to acknowledge. No doubt there will be details to discuss, but the fundamental trajectory is one that I hope we can more or less all share. The two new clauses help to make the application of age verification both more enforceable and more internally consistent.

I will conclude my remarks with a brief observation and then with a specific question for the Minister. My observation is that seeking to maintain a sharp distinction between what people can do when they are under the age of 18 and what they can do when aged 18 and over will need careful consideration in the future. We and our society must prepare people for life as adults in realistic and effective ways. A great deal needs to be done in an honest and transparent manner, and here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, not least when looking at the PSHE curriculum because it is so much of a political football—but then nothing happens. However, there are really serious issues which cannot be ducked if we want to prepare children for the world as it actually is—the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens.

At the same time, I do not think we can simply assume without further thought and the careful research which is undoubtedly needed that adult exposure to pornographic material is always justifiable in the name of individual freedom and choice. This area is beyond the current Bill and certainly, careful evidence-based research is required, but there have been too many warnings from senior judges and others who have seen with their own eyes evidence of the corrupting potential of pornography in the serious criminal trials they were overseeing. Just where the legal lines are drawn, I am not sure, because some difficult questions are raised in this area, but I would like to suggest that these issues are important ones for the future.

Finally, I have a question for the Minister. I would like him to comment on what the expectations are for social media sites like Twitter, which can themselves host user-generated pornographic content. The expectations on commercial pornography websites are set out pretty clearly in Clause 15, but will the Minister please clarify how the Bill as drafted will impact on social media sites? Clause 22 starts to cover this with its reference to “ancillary service providers”, but in Clause 22(6) the reference is restricted to business activities so provided. Evidence from the Government to the Communications Select Committee on 29 October was as follows:

“Twitter is a user-generated uploading-content site. If there is pornography on Twitter, it will be considered covered under ancillary services”.

How does that apply to material on Twitter that is not uploaded in the course of business activities? I ask the Minister to clarify this point when he responds.

Digital Economy Bill

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. Yesterday, along with many of your Lordships, I attended a meeting with Channel 4 on the subject of fake news. Here we are not talking about opinion, where people can legitimately take one view or another in a democracy, but about things that are demonstrably totally false. Yet there is no mechanism at the moment for screening them out of social media. If in the United States 44% of the population regard Facebook as their primary source of news, there are dangers for democracy.

I do not know whether the noble Lord’s amendment will work. I do not know whether, for example, the companies will regard algorithms as commercially confidential and refuse to release them. I do not know what powers we actually have over these bodies, but it is worth exploring. It would be ridiculous if this massive Bill, which deals very well for the most part with a wide range of subjects, were to leave out the most topical and potentially the most dangerous of all: social media.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, this is an important amendment because it touches upon the bigger issue of the impact of artificial intelligence on all sorts of aspects of our lives. There is a law called Moore’s law, which says that every two years the power of computers doubles. That has been true over the past 20 or 30 years and we should assume that that power will continue to develop. Artificial intelligence in all its impacting forms will be more and more prevalent in our society and more and more potent in the hands of terrorists in the years to come.

We cannot ask Ofcom to solve all the problems in this area, but I would like to know where the ownership of these risks and the rapid changes in our society falls in the eyes of the Government. Perhaps Ofcom has a role in this regard—search engines or whatever—but it is really part of a bigger picture of how we get ahead of the game with the impact of artificial intelligence. We read in the papers about driverless cars appearing on our streets, and in many other areas of life artificial intelligence will impact upon us. Where is this owned in the corridors of government?

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to support my noble friend in his amendment. Algorithms are basically mathematical. The power of computers is used to record, classify, summarise and project actions that indicate what is happening in the world around about us. Algorithms can be applied in particular to social media, which other noble Lords have referred to, and to normal internet usage and browsing. They reach decisions about public interest, about you and about me.

According to a recent radio programme, algorithms are used to make individual decisions in the fields of employment, housing, health, justice, credit and insurance. I had heard that employers are increasingly studying social media to find out more about job applicants. I had not realised that an algorithm, programmed by an engineer, can, for example, take the decision to bin an application. If that is true, that is absolutely unacceptable. It certainly explains why so many jobseekers do not receive a response of any kind. There is a very real danger that a person could also be refused a mortgage or a better interest rate as the result of an algorithmic decision. Even now some companies use algorithms based on phone numbers to decide whether a caller is high or low value. Highs get to speak to a person: lows are left holding on until they hang up. Algorithm designers refuse to answer any questions, I understand, about the data that are used or their application on grounds of commercial confidentiality. There are real concerns that if we continue to allow such liberties, there will be an increasing risk of discrimination—intentional or accidental—against people of certain races, religions or ages. One example of algorithm use cited in the programme was that of differential pricing by Uber.

The EU intends that by July 2018 citizens will have the right to an explanation of decisions affected by the workings of these algorithms, such as the online rejection of a bank loan. I do not feel that we should wait until then, and although my noble friend’s amendment might not be perfect, I am really grateful that he has tabled it today and that we are having this worthwhile debate.

Digital Economy Bill

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I know we want to get to the Front-Bench speakers so I shall be very brief and, like the contestant on “Just a Minute”, not repeat anything that has been said so far in the debate. I will say just two things.

First, virtually the only defence of the Government was from the noble Earl. He is half right and half wrong, in my view. The problem is that the Bill is not about the regulation of what adults should be watching, but changing the designation of pornographic material does just that. That is the internal problem in the Bill.

Secondly, there seems to be an agreement between the Government Front Bench and the Opposition Front Bench that the government amendments are going to go through. Then we have the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. When he replies, I would like the Minister to speak about the White Paper and the further review that is in prospect. What are its terms of reference? If the Bill goes through in the form in which the Government now want it to go through, it will leave a very unsatisfactory state of affairs in terms of how adult pornography is dealt with in our country, with the distinction between offline and online, and all the questions about the actual impact of what will be accessible. It would be helpful to me if the Minister would say a little more about what the review that the Government have in mind is intended to cover.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, shall be extremely brief because this matter has now been dealt with in great detail by a number of speakers. Few issues that come before your Lordships’ House make me quite as angry and distressed as this. Given the role that Parliament plays in the welfare of our nation and our children, it saddens me hugely that we are even debating it as we are. I understand why we have to but it is an enormous comment on the state of our country. It took me a while to realise that we now accept pornography as an industry. It is an acceptable industry—not quite like motor cars or other things but it has become acceptable—and I think that says an awful lot about the state of our nation today.

I have spoken before in this House about how many thousands of primary school children watch hardcore porn on a regular basis. That should be cause for concern for us all. The noble Earl made the point about Fifty Shades of Grey—which I have to say immediately that I have neither read nor seen—but that makes the point for us, does it not? We are talking about a medium into which our young children slip away from us—we do not know where they have gone. It is a world we cannot join them in. I think it is a dreadful world—interesting, fascinating, fun, in some ways; but in other ways, absolutely dreadful. Those primary school children are not going to go out to Waterstones and buy Fifty Shades of Grey or pay for a ticket to go the cinema to watch the film of it. They are going to their bedrooms to slip into this other world and watch all these horrible things we are talking about.

How often have I heard us say in this House that the welfare of the child is paramount? We say it time after time, relating to one Bill after another. If we really mean it when we say it, we should be much tougher on issues such as this. That should be reflected in how we vote today. I do not know what will happen to the government amendments but if we divide on them, I shall vote against them. I shall certainly support Amendment 25YD, in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I hope very much that the House will show what it really thinks about these issues and support that amendment as well.