My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, raises once again the really important issue of the protection of our children from the dangers of the internet, and specifically the pornography and violence that can be accessed too easily.
However, there are problems with opting in to internet content filters, which remain crude, even though there has been some improvement in recent years. The problems of the opt-in system proposed by the noble Baroness are twofold. The first is that it is possible for too much to be filtered out. Imagine a young person who is not sure about their sexuality. The words “homosexual”, “lesbian” and “transgender” would be filtered out, and organisations such as Stonewall, which does excellent work with confused young people, will find that their websites are banned by these filters. More sophisticated versions can filter out skin. Here there is an attempt to filter out pornographic images, but these filters have also banned the Daily Mail, which had a photograph of a woman in a bikini on the front page. The second problem is that internet-knowledgeable young people find mechanisms to work their way round filters, through murky rings round the usual internet. Most parents do not understand or know about these and will assume that their child is protected, whereas the reality is that they are not.
I am also concerned about the proposals in subsection (4) of the proposed new clause, which say that Ofcom has a duty to filter content,
“by age or subject category by providers of internet access services and mobile phone operators”;
and, in subsection (9), that,
“OFCOM may designate any body corporate to carry out its duties under this section”.
Is Ofcom now going to start classifying content? Even if it designates the British Board of Film Classification, that is fine for the areas that the BBFC covers—film, video, video games, mobile phone content that you can buy—but it does not cover other material, especially private, and we know from the revenge porn debate in your Lordships’ House recently that this is one of the first areas of porn that young people see. It will always be impossible to cover private material, so there will always be a way in.
There is also a further issue about young people who work their way round filters, usually in a ridiculously short time. Would that young person, often under 18, be committing a crime, or would their parents be committing one for not supervising their internet use? The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre website for parents, children and teachers, called “Thinkuknow”, advocates the best way forward. It talks about parental involvement with their children, and for parents, teachers and friends to alert young people to the dangers of the web. Sex and relationship education in schools is increasingly including teaching about the dangers and problems with porn. The website states:
“Parental controls will never make the internet 100% ‘safe’. They should not be used as a substitute for communicating safety messages to your child. Make sure that you talk to your child about their behaviour online and remember, your home is not the only place they will be accessing the internet!”.
An opt-out, rather than an opt-in, system leaves the control with the parents. They cannot relax and assume their children are safe—nor should they—and they are more likely to have sensible conversations with their children than parents who believe they are covered by an opt-in system.