Opposition Day — [2nd Allotted Day] — Protecting Children Online

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:47 pm on 12 June 2013.

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Photo of Alun Cairns Alun Cairns Conservative, Vale of Glamorgan 2:47, 12 June 2013

I am running short of time, but if the hon. Lady will allow me to make my point, I might answer her question.

We need to recognise, however, that the policing of such shops is relatively straightforward and that in general children cannot access or stumble across such material. Appropriate filters should stop the “stumbling across” element, but that leaves us with the policing. We need to publicise the work of the IWF and reassure people who might report issues to it that they will not necessarily be compromised. Much attention is focused on search engine companies, and it is important that they play their part—they have a responsibility here—but having researched their activities, I am aware of some of the technology they use to identify illegal content. They can claim to be playing a part, therefore, but search engines need to be at the cutting edge of image analysis and coding—they need to be one step ahead of the perpetrators of these terrible offences.

By focusing the debate on search engines, as some Members did earlier, we are forgetting that hosting is where the offence effectively lies. If a website has been scratched from the search engine, the URL still exists and those seeking to view illegal content can go straight to that address. The IWF, which has been mentioned several times—I welcome the extra money made available to it today—has made a huge difference. Some 1% of the content it removes from the internet is hosted in the UK; 54% is hosted in north America; 37% is hosted across the rest of Europe and Russia; the figure for Asia is only 1%; and for South America it is even smaller. Those are the issues. It is an international problem.