Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to prevent children from being exposed to (a) violent and (b) sexual content online.

Under the Online Safety Act, all in-scope services need to tackle illegal content and criminal behaviour, including illegal violent and sexual offences. These duties are in force now.

From Summer, in-scope user-to-user services likely to be accessed by children have a duty to prevent all children from encountering the most harmful content, which includes pornography. Additionally, services will need to provide age-appropriate access for other types of harmful content, including content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an act of serious violence against a person.