Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he plans to use British Board of Film Classification age verification guidance in setting standards to restrict the most harmful content from access by children under legislative proposals on online harms.

It is vital that children are protected from accessing age-inappropriate, harmful content online. The government’s Online Harms legislation will establish in law a new ‘duty of care’ on companies towards their users. The ‘duty of care’ will ensure companies have robust systems and processes in place to keep their users safe and will deliver a higher level of protection for children than for the typical adult user. Details of how the online harms legislation will protect children from harmful content will be published later this year in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation.