Internet: Safety

(asked on 16th December 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Government response to the Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee Report on Immersive and Addictive Technologies, published on 8 June 2020, what plans he has to introduce legislative proposals to require companies to use a proportionate range of tools including age assurance, and age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 11th January 2021

Protecting children is at the heart of our online harms agenda, and wider government priorities. We have now published our Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper, which sets out how a proposed legal duty of care on online companies will work in practice and gives them new responsibilities towards their users. We are working at pace to have legislation ready next year.

Services which are likely to be accessed by children will be required to provide additional protections for children using them. Companies will be required to assess the risk their service poses for children, put in place proportionate measures to protect children, and monitor these for effectiveness. Under our proposals, we expect companies to use age assurance or age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing services which pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography. Companies will also need to provide age-appropriate protections from harmful content and activity for children using their service.

We would encourage companies to take steps ahead of the legislation to protect children from harmful and age inappropriate content online. We are working closely with stakeholders across industry to establish the right conditions for the market to deliver age assurance and age verification technical solutions ahead of the legislative requirements coming into force.

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