Draft Online Safety (List of Overseas Regulators) Regulations 2024

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 General Committees

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Betts. I welcome the Online Safety Act, but unfortunately it falls rather short of where it could have gone. I agree with the Minister about the need for Ofcom to work across borders. The Internet Watch Foundation confirmed more than 250,000 reports of child sexual abuse content in 2022 alone, which was an increase on 2021. Most of this content originates from URLs based in Europe, so Ofcom’s working to regulate the internet with regulators from France, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Australia and the European Commission is an essential and logical first step in working globally to protect children online. However, the regulations could, as ever, be improved. To that end, I will make two brief points that build on a point made by the hon. Member for Windsor, my former “Woman’s Hour” collaborator.

I would be interested to find out why the Government have yet to include the Philippines in the list of overseas regulators. As the Minister will know, the International Justice Mission has found that 500,000 Filipino children—one in every 100 children—are trafficked each year to create livestreamed child sexual abuse content. Many of the children abused are aged 12 or below, and it is common for it to take up to two years before the children are found and safeguarded. Much of this abuse is driven by foreign demand, which comes predominantly from the United States, Europe, Australia and the United Kingdom. Typically, western child sex predators will pay as little as $25 to watch children being sexually abused on a livestreamed video.

The UK currently ranks third in the world for demand for child sexual abuse content. The National Crime Agency has recently declared the Philippines a global hotspot for the production of child sexual abuse content. Although this abuse is being carried out in south-east Asia, it is being driven by predators based in the UK. I therefore strongly believe that our Government have a duty to act.

The Congress of the Philippines finally passed a law in 2022 making it an offence to produce, distribute, possess or make available child sexual abuse material. This provides an opportunity for Ofcom to work with the Philippines to protect children and end the pervasive issue of livestreaming child sexual abuse content. I urge the Government to include the Philippines on the list of overseas regulators, while continuing to work with European partners to block access to child sexual abuse content in the UK.

My second point is about whether the use of virtual private networks will undermine the effectiveness of Ofcom’s work, in conjunction with overseas regulators, to protect children from harmful content while prohibiting paedophiles from accessing child sexual abuse content. As the Committee will know, VPNs are used to hide a user’s location and identity, and are often used to avoid regional blocks on content.

I have two primary concerns about the use of VPNs and the effectiveness of the draft regulations. First, it is widely known that paedophiles use VPNs to access child abuse content. The Internet Watch Foundation has created an initiative to work with VPN providers to ensure that their apps are not being abused to view child sexual abuse material. However, there is no legal requirement for companies to do so, and VPNs are still being exploited. How will the Minister ensure that Ofcom cracks down, along with overseas regulators, on the use of VPNs to view child sexual abuse content? Secondly, the Act provides for age verification tools to prevent children from viewing harmful content. Given that VPNs are known to be able to circumvent geographical regulations, how will the Minister ensure that they do not undermine age verification tools?

I support what is proposed in the draft regulations, but I hope that the Government will take my points on board and work with me to strengthen them.