I recently wound up a debate in the House of Lords on the Second Reading of Baroness Beeban Kidron’s Age Assurance Private Member’s Bill which is designed to set mandatory standards for age assurancace for internet sites and online platforms in the UK

Here is my speech explaining why I support this as an essential part of keeping children safe online.

 

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2021-11-19/debates/B5044809-8B71-4C4A-82F8-5BA496610C54/AgeAssurance(MinimumStandards)Bill(HL)#contribution-526C6AA7-0F3C-49D1-BBD8-83CDA39340AD

 

My Lords, I add my thanks to those from all around the House to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for introducing the Bill with such passion and commitment. We all know what an amazing campaigner she is. We hope that this is another stage in the end of—to adopt the powerful phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—the destruction of innocence.

It is a privilege to be winding up from these Benches, and to serve on the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill along with the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert. Naturally, Members of the House have focused today on the importance of age assurance to child protection in terms of both safety and data protection. We should not tolerate the collateral damage from the online platforms—another powerful phrase, this time from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron—as the cost of innovation.

A number of noble Lords, such as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, talked about cyberbullying, while the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, talked about the impact on body image and mental health in consequence. All around the House there are different motives for wanting to see proper standards for age assurance. I very much share what the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, had to say about access to pornography having such a pernicious impact on young people’s relationships. At the same time, it was worth celebrating the genesis of Spare Rib. The word “empowerment” sprang to mind, because that underlies quite a lot of what we are trying to do today.

From my point of view, I cannot do better than quote the evidence from Barnardo’s to our Joint Select Committee to explain the frustration about what has been a long, winding and ultimately futile road over Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, for which we waited for two years only to be told in 2019 that it was not going to be implemented. As Barnardo’s says:

“The failure to enact the original age verification legislation over three years ago has meant that thousands of children have continued to easily access pornography sites and this will continue unless the draft legislation is amended. Evidence shows (detailed later in the response) that accessing harmful pornography has a hugely damaging impact on children.”

As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, says, there should not be a second’s argument about restricting this. The evidence from Barnardo’s continues:

“The British Board of Film Classification survey in 2019 reported that children are stumbling upon pornography online from as young as seven. The survey also suggested that three-quarters of parents felt their child would not have seen porn online but more than half had done so.”

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talked about a jungle of predators. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, even spoke of a pyramid of dung, which is an expression that was new to me today. The message from the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, is clear: we need to be vigilant. It is astonishing that the online safety Bill itself does not tackle this issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, put the whole impact of digital technology and social media on the brains of young people into perspective for many of us.

However, the crucial aspect is that the Bill is not about the circumstances in which age assurance or age verification is required but about the standards that must be adhered to. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, we are talking about secure and privacy-protecting age assurance, proportionate to risk and with a route to redress. This is further testimony, from the NSPCC evidence to the Joint Select Committee:

“Given the intrinsic role of age assurance to deliver a higher standard of protection for children, the Government should set out further detail about how it envisages age assurance being implemented. Further clarification is required about if and when it intends to set standards for age assurance technologies. While the ICO intends to publish further guidance on age assurance measures later this year, it remains highly unclear what standards and thresholds are likely to apply.”

The process of setting standards started with the BBFC in preparing for the coming into effect of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act. As the designated age-verification regulator, the BBFC published guidance on the kind of age-verification arrangements that would have ensured that pornographic services complied with the law. It rightly opted for a principles-based approach, as indeed does the Bill, rather than specifying a finite number of approved solutions, in order to allow for and encourage technological innovation within the age-verification industry. Sadly, that guidance was not implemented when the Government decided not to implement Part 3 of the DEA. As I say, this Bill adopts a similarly non-technology-prescriptive approach.

It is clearer than ever that, across a variety of news cases, we need a binding set of age-assurance standards. Again, I was taken by another phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert: we need to create a positive place online. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, talked about the digital world that children deserve. Why have the platforms not instituted proper age assessment already, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, asked? This should have been fixed a long time ago. As the noble Baroness, Lady Harding says, it is a multibillion-pound industry and, as the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, said, they already know a huge amount about us. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, the responsibility lies with the platforms, not young people, who are prone to addiction technology.

We can and should incorporate the requirements of the Bill into the online safety Bill, but we have an urgent need to make sure that these age-assurance standards are clear much earlier than that. The ICO set out in its guidance in October, Age Assurance for the Children’s Code—previously the age-appropriate design code—expectations for age-assurance data protection compliance. Ofcom’s Video-sharing Platform Guidance: Guidance for Providers on Measures to Protect Users from Harmful Material, also published in October, is even weaker. There is not even an expectation; it simply says:

“VSP providers may consider the following factors when establishing and operating age assurance systems”.

That is all they are, considerations and expectations. At present there are no sanctions attached to those requirements. It is clear that we need binding standards for age assurance to make these sets of guidance fully operative and legally enforceable.

The technology is there. The Government should adopt the Bill here and now—and ensure its passage before the end of this term. As the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, says, it lies in our hands. I hope noble Lords will resist the temptation to table amendments during the passage of the Bill. If they do resist that, we could avoid Committee stage and move rapidly towards Report and Third Reading, to make this Bill a reality.

As the right reverend Prelate said, children are at risk for the want of this Bill and we have the regulator in the wings.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, we could simply include this in the online safety Bill, but an 11 year-old will be an adult by 2024. As she asked, how many children will be harmed in the interim? The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, said that watertight protection means mandatory standards for age assurance. This is a vital brick in the wall. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said that he had heard every excuse from government for not implementing legislation—I think I am with him on that—and also said that this Bill is absolute proof against that. Let us give it the fairest wind we possibly can.