Digital Economy Bill

I do not want to overload the Front-Bench contributions from this side, or to turn this into a mutual admiration society, but I want to say that the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has played a blinder in educating many of us in this House about the possibilities and the technologies being developed on anonymised age verification. As the Minister probably knows, we had a very useful session with many of those developing new apps for this precise purpose. Yoti was one, VeriMe was another—one could go on. There are different types of age verification, which can be chosen by the consumer. The most recent, which is now virtually available for general use, is Yoti, which the noble Earl mentioned. These methods are now available for use; this is not a question of pie in the sky, or of things not being available for a year or so. That makes the amendment highly practical, and, as my noble friend said, it is absolutely essential for the protection of personal privacy.