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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government had plans to include reference to smart, internet-connected devices in the definition of online harms.

The Online Harms White Paper consultation proposes that the duty of care applies to companies that provide services or tools that allow, enable or facilitate users to share or discover user-generated content, or interact with each other online. It, therefore, would not typically apply to consumer smart devices. Harms suffered by individuals that result directly from a breach of data protection, breach of cyber-security or hacking are also excluded from scope.

However, the Government has taken a number of actions to increase the security of consumer smart devices. In October 2018, DCMS published the Code of Practice for Consumer Internet of Things (IoT) Security to support manufacturers in building strong security into smart products by design. We recognise that further action is needed, and we will soon be publishing a consultation on our regulatory proposals regarding consumer IoT security.