Committee (7th Day)

Part of Digital Economy Bill [HL] – in the House of Lords at 7:30 pm on 8 February 2010.

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Photo of Lord Mackay of Clashfern Lord Mackay of Clashfern Conservative 7:30, 8 February 2010

My Lords, I support the amendments moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, first of all on the basis of promoting online safety. In a recent comment, the director of research for IBM, discussing a report which IBM produced, said that the internet was like the Wild West. Exactly what he meant by that may mean different things to different Members of the Committee, but it appeared to me that he meant that it was utterly uncontrolled, at least in some respects. If that is true, then it is particularly true in relation to children.

Dr Tanya Byron, who has already been referred to, was involved with TalkTalk in a research project looking at the interaction between children and the internet. That research reached the conclusion that 63 per cent of children had lied to their parents about their online behaviour. In other words, they knew that they were doing something online of which their parents would disapprove, and therefore the best protection was to refuse to tell them; in other words to lie about what they were doing. Some 44 per cent boasted that they could hide unsuitable internet activity from their parents. No doubt the lies were part of that hiding operation, but there may have been other ways of doing so as well. Some 53 per cent had deleted their browser history, so that their parents could not check where they had been, or which particular websites they had been visiting.

There is certainly an incongruity between the presence of proper legal protections offline and their absence online. We have very strong protections for all sorts of activities, as the noble Baroness has said. Although there has been some attempt to produce a safe and secure environment without recourse to the law, through the promotion of voluntary self-regulation and good practice guidance, the truth is that there is still great room for improvement. In that respect, I believe that the law and this Bill have a part to play. Although it is undoubtedly true that many providers of internet access already make filtering options available for purchase, Amendment 251A will ensure that we fully benefit from filtering protection by requiring providers to make filtering options available and to make them available in a prominent place on the website as it is offered, at the point of purchase and for the duration of the contract. This provides a very simple, light-touch type of control which would have a very good chance of being effective.

We know the dangers to which children are exposed via the internet from a number of sources. Amendment 255A deals with age verification, which is already required in quite a number of instances. It seems right to have the same concern for protecting underage children from accessing unsuitable material on the internet as we have for protecting them from accessing unsuitable things such as cigarettes, alcohol and the like offline. Why not do the same for online things as we do for offline things? I hope the Minister will be able to accept the spirit of these amendments, if not their words. I am sure that the wording can be improved by the labours of parliamentary counsel, but I think the principle is reasonably clear.