Digital Safety: Children

Tom Collins Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kanishka Narayan]

It is valuable that the hon. Member has raised those particular harms. I assure her that extreme violence and self-harm content of the sort she has described are already significant and priority offences under the Online Safety Act. Platforms have liability for making sure that that sort of content is proactively rooted out, and where that is not happening, the regulator has the powers it needs to act against it and will continue to do so. The particular change we are considering is about a very specific classifier of nudity—it is much harder to build classifiers for particular types of violence. However, I will of course continue to work with the hon. Member, and any other Members who are interested, on what more we can do.

[Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s position on this issue. We know that the technology is capable and present. I have spoken to those in the UK developing it, but it is being realised against headwinds, because there is no pull. For every other product area or technology, consumers rightly expect safety, and that is built into our product safety laws, but that is not the case with digital. There is no pull for this technology from the big tech companies. Does the Minister agree that we should move in a direction that creates this pull for innovation, for safety as a value and for technology that delivers safety? Such innovation could be enriching our economy as much as the technology at the moment is threatening people’s health.

[Kanishka Narayan]

Safety by design is an incredibly important principle. I valued its mention in the online safety legislation and in our engagement with companies. It is an attractive and tractable way of driving change, too. My hon. Friend has done extensive work on this issue, and I look forward to engaging with him in depth to make sure that his ideas feed into our decisions.