Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 14 December 2021 to Question 88799, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the Gambling Commission investigating a total of eight deaths by suicide where gambling may have been a factor since the start of 2018, in the context of Public Health England's September 2021 estimate that there are 409 gambling-related suicides a year; and in relation to those eight investigations, how many times the Commission reported the findings of its investigation to the coroner conducting the inquest into each death.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government does not collect statistics on suicides where gambling may have been a factor, although Public Health England’s evidence review estimated on the basis of two overseas studies that there may be 409 such deaths each year. The Department of Health and Social Care is working to improve data collection and address other evidence gaps identified in the report.
Operators who are aware of a death by suicide which may be linked to their gambling facilities are expected to notify the Gambling Commission so that it can investigate whether there has been a breach of social responsibility codes and take action where appropriate. Coroners’ jurisdiction does not extend to determining the underlying reasons for a person’s death, and the Commission does not routinely notify them of its findings. However, it has assisted a coroner in making their overall findings on the circumstances of an individual’s death in two cases since the beginning of 2018. The Commission co-operates with coroner inquiries whenever they are made, usually by providing information about the regulation of the gambling industry.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department plans to include consideration in the Gambling Act review of the introduction of testing for new amusement machines and games to gather evidence on regulatory reforms and social responsibility measures.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
As part of its broad scope, our Gambling Act Review call for evidence included questions on the rules governing land based gambling and the need to ensure an equitable approach to the regulation of the online and the land based industries.
We are carefully considering all the evidence submitted and a white paper setting out our next steps and proposals for reform will be published in due course.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards have been put in place to ensure the data held by ClassDojo is not shared with the third-party service providers with which it works.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department provides guidance to support schools with data protection activity via the General Data Protection Regulation toolkit for schools. The toolkit is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-toolkit-for-schools. Schools are data controllers and are ultimately responsible for their own data protection procedures and compliance with legislation.
It is a school’s individual responsibility to assess the digital resources it uses from a data protection and privacy perspective. Further information on GDPR compliance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards have been put in place to ensure the data held by ClassDojo complies with UK data protection and privacy law.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department provides guidance to support schools with data protection activity via the General Data Protection Regulation toolkit for schools. The toolkit is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-toolkit-for-schools. Schools are data controllers and are ultimately responsible for their own data protection procedures and compliance with legislation.
It is a school’s individual responsibility to assess the digital resources it uses from a data protection and privacy perspective. Further information on GDPR compliance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the privacy of children’s data held on US-based application, ClassDojo, that is in use in UK schools.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department provides guidance to support schools with data protection activity via the General Data Protection Regulation toolkit for schools. The toolkit is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-toolkit-for-schools. Schools are data controllers and are ultimately responsible for their own data protection procedures and compliance with legislation.
It is a school’s individual responsibility to assess the digital resources it uses from a data protection and privacy perspective. Further information on GDPR compliance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the regulatory framework governing the responsibility of online platforms, including search engines and social media sites to protect their users against scam content on their sites.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We are deeply concerned about the growth and scale of online scams. My officials work closely on this matter with other government departments, including the Home Office as the government department responsible for tackling fraud, as well as with industry, regulators and consumer groups. Through an ongoing programme of work, the government is considering additional legislative and non-legislative solutions to effectively address the harms posed by all elements of online fraud in a cohesive and robust way.
Within my department, the Online Advertising Programme will be considering further regulation of online advertising to tackle harms including fraud. The government will launch a public consultation on measures to enhance how online advertising is regulated in the UK this year.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions Ofcom has had with (a) social media companies and (b) citizen and consumer groups on online harms in 2020.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Ofcom has responsibility for the video sharing platform (VSP) regime which will come into force by this Autumn. Ofcom is working constructively alongside industry to develop the foundations both for this regime and any future online regulation. Through its engagement with stakeholders, Ofcom will ensure its guidance for the VSP regime is informed by robust evidence, best practice and an understanding of the current capabilities of different services.
Ofcom also has regular ongoing engagement with a wide variety of online-related bodies in the delivery of its media literacy duties including through the Making Sense of Media (MSOM) programme, which brings together organisations and individuals with expertise in media literacy with a shared goal of improving the online skills, knowledge and understanding of UK adults and children.
In February 2020, the Government published the initial consultation response to the Online Harms White Paper and announced that it was minded to appoint Ofcom as the online harms regulator. Further details will be included in the full government response to the consultation, which we will publish later this year.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what sanctions are in place for gambling operators that breach age-restricted advertising rules.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Gambling companies that advertise to British consumers must abide by strict rules on the content and placement of ads, including that they must never be targeted at children or vulnerable people. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK’s regulator for advertising and where it finds an ad to be in breach of its codes it will require the ad be amended or removed. If an advertiser fails to act on this warning, the ASA has a range of sanctions it can take, including Ad Alerts to the media, withdrawal of trading privileges, and mandatory pre-vetting. The ASA’s authority is underpinned in regulation of broadcast advertising by a statutory relationship with Ofcom and the Gambling Commission’s licence conditions and codes of practice require operators to comply with the advertising codes for all forms of gambling advertising. Serious and repeated breaches of the codes may lead to an operator being referred by the ASA to the Gambling Commission, which has the power to suspend or revoke licences and issue financial penalties.
The Government assessed the evidence on advertising in its Review of Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures, the full response to which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-proposals-for-changes-to-gaming-machines-and-social-responsibility-measures. We continue to keep emerging evidence under review.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of banning gambling advertising.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Gambling companies that advertise to British consumers must abide by strict rules on the content and placement of ads, including that they must never be targeted at children or vulnerable people. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK’s regulator for advertising and where it finds an ad to be in breach of its codes it will require the ad be amended or removed. If an advertiser fails to act on this warning, the ASA has a range of sanctions it can take, including Ad Alerts to the media, withdrawal of trading privileges, and mandatory pre-vetting. The ASA’s authority is underpinned in regulation of broadcast advertising by a statutory relationship with Ofcom and the Gambling Commission’s licence conditions and codes of practice require operators to comply with the advertising codes for all forms of gambling advertising. Serious and repeated breaches of the codes may lead to an operator being referred by the ASA to the Gambling Commission, which has the power to suspend or revoke licences and issue financial penalties.
The Government assessed the evidence on advertising in its Review of Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures, the full response to which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-proposals-for-changes-to-gaming-machines-and-social-responsibility-measures. We continue to keep emerging evidence under review.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
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 Advisory Board for Safer Gambling report, Progress Report on the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms, published on 26 June 2020, what steps he is taking to ensure that the Gambling Commission makes progress on tackling gambling related suicide.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Gambling Commission’s role is to license and regulate commercial gambling in Great Britain, advising the Government on matters relating to gambling and ensuring that operators abide by strict requirements intended to keep gambling fair and open and crime free and to protect children and vulnerable people.
Operators providing gambling facilities to customers in Great Britain must be licensed by the Commission and comply with the conditions of their operating licences. It expects them to obey the laws of all other jurisdictions in which they operate, and requires them to report any regulatory investigation or finding into their activities in any other jurisdiction. They must inform the Commission if they have a substantial customer base outside of Britain and state why they consider they are legally able to offer facilities to those customers.
Requiring the Commission to complete, publish and maintain a jurisdiction by jurisdiction legal analysis of a range of combinations of products and supply arrangements would require a significant expenditure of resource in an area which does not relate to its core responsibility to regulate gambling in Great Britain. The Commission considers it is for operators to satisfy themselves that they are acting in a lawful manner in other jurisdictions and if they are found not to be, it will re-assess their suitability to hold a licence to offer gambling services in Britain.
The Commission’s list of research, prevention and treatment organisations is intended to give clarity to operators on where they may direct funding to satisfy the licence condition requirement of an annual financial contribution. It requires organisations on the list to demonstrate suitable independent oversight, such as regulation by the Charity Commission, and to make a commitment to collaborate with other bodies in order to prioritise actions to reduce gambling harms.
In March 2020 the Commission amended its licence conditions and codes of practice to make it mandatory for operators to be integrated to GAMSTOP, the multi-operator self-exclusion scheme. The charity GambleAware has commissioned the first phase of a study to assess the impact of multi-operator self-exclusion schemes, including those for online gambling. This first phase is nearing publication and we will consider its findings carefully.
The Advisory Board for Safer Gambling’s Progress Report on the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms made a number of recommendations on gambling-related suicide, but these are within the remit of bodies other than the Commission. The Government is considering the report carefully.