Online Safety Bill (Ninth sitting)

Steve Double Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

Given that the clause is clearly uncontentious, I will be extremely brief.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

Hear, hear.

[Chris Philp]

I can see that that is the most popular thing I have said during the entire session—when you say, “And finally,” in a speech and the crowd cheers, you know you are in trouble.

Regulated user-to-user and search services will have duties to keep records of their risk assessments and the measures they take to comply with their safety duties, whether or not those are the ones recommended in the codes of practice. They must also undertake a children’s access assessment to determine whether children are likely to access their service.

Clause 48 places a duty on Ofcom to produce guidance to assist service providers in complying with those duties. It will help to ensure a consistent approach from service providers, which is essential in maintaining a level playing field. Ofcom will have a duty to consult the Information Commissioner prior to preparing this guidance, as set out in clause 48(2), in order to draw on the expertise of the Information Commissioner’s Office and ensure that the guidance is aligned with wider data protection and privacy regulation.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 48 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 49

“Regulated user-generated content”, “user-generated content”, “news

publisher content”