Online Harms Consultation

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises important points. I stress that we really believe that we have broadened the scope of this legislation substantially from what was previously proposed. The new regime will capture the most-visited pornography sites and pornography on social media, so we think that the vast majority of sites on which children might be exposed to pornography will be within the scope of the legislation.

In relation to the noble Baroness’s specific points, I say that the situation with learning platforms has obviously changed dramatically this year, with Covid and the use and extent of remote learning. The principle that we were following was that there were already safeguarding and regulatory regimes in place within education, but we will obviously keep that dialogue open. On commercial pornography sites that do not host user-generated content, in most cases the user-generated and commercial content—if I can call it that—are closely intertwined, as the noble Baroness knows, so measures such as age verification or age assurance would be in place on those sites that would prevent underage access.

In relation to the noble Baroness’s final point, yes, those sites would be in the scope of the Bill, both because of the nature of the user interaction and because those services would need to assess the likelihood of children accessing them and therefore to have appropriate safeguards in place.

[The Lord Bishop of Oxford [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests, particularly my membership as a board member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. I sincerely congratulate the Government and other agencies such as the Carnegie UK Trust for these proposals, the way in which they have been developed and their substance. They have a very simple ethical code at their heart: if something is illegal or harmful offline, it should be illegal and considered harmful online. The protection of children is paramount; refinements will be needed, but the main direction is right. The proposals break new ground. I only hope that there will be a due sense of urgency as they are taken forward. I understand the need to focus the legislation, but given the decision to rule fraud and certain other areas out of scope—which will no doubt continue to be debated—when will we see an overall digital strategy so that we can see this Bill as part of a whole?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Part of the reason for defining the scope in a way that excludes, for example, fraud is that it is not typically user-generated content; it is also the result of the point that the right reverend Prelate makes about speed of implementation, which is obviously paramount. The Government have recently announced a new national data strategy, which I am happy to share with him if he has not already seen it.