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Internet (Child Protection)

Seven or so years ago, a Home Office Minister said in a parliamentary answer on the task force for child protection that the"““aim is to make the United Kingdom (UK) the best and safest place in the world for children to use the internet””.—[Official Report, 4 February 2002; Vol. 379, c. 671W.]" Last year, however, 32 per cent. of children said that they had received unwanted, nasty or sexual comments while on the web. Freedom of information and the unhampered exchange of that information are, of course, at the heart of a free world. What we do not want is Government control of the internet, such as exists in China and elsewhere. The internet is a space for creativity, communication and a fantastic tool for use in education. Too often, any discussion of internet safety leads to the internet being labelled as a bad thing. Clearly, the reverse is the case, but internet users should expect a degree of protection not least from fraud and illegal content, and, for our children, from harmful content. I start by paying tribute to the impressive work of Dr. Tanya Byron and her Byron review, and I look forward with interest to her recommendations. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee—whose Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), is present—is about to start taking oral evidence on this issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) has put forward a private Member's Bill to classify video content downloads, in order to help protect children, among other things. So I believe that this subject is topical. Tonight's debate takes on increasing relevance given the recent spate of suicides in Bridgend. Today, we awoke to the tragic news that there had been a 14th victim. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) has raised this in Parliament and has secured an Adjournment debate tomorrow, which I am sure will be well attended. The Government have the option to make content illegal, as they have with extreme pornography, race hatred and child abuse. The Government also have a role to protect children, and that is what I want to focus on this evening. Schools' hard-pressed IT departments do not have the resources, nor parents the know-how, to protect our children. Another problem is that eight Government Departments have an interest in internet content: the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health, the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. There is a real lack of ownership within Government of internet content regulation. The Government can solve that by establishing a lead Department and developing a co-regulatory structure to regulate internet content, bringing together, for example, charities, parents, academics, relevant Government Departments, law enforcement agencies and the industry itself, to decide codes of conduct in grey areas. That could work along the lines of the Advertising Standards Authority or the Press Complaints Commission, and would replace the current piecemeal and knee-jerk codes of conduct and self-regulation; let us call it the ““internet standards authority””. Harmful content—that is content where cultural, taste and decency judgments have to be made—would come under the internet standards authority remit and could include glorification of violence and terrorism, pornography, cyber-bullying, suicide, internet gambling and anorexia websites, some of which Members might think are worth banning. However, the list is not exhaustive. The internet standards authority would build a dynamic filter and create a blacklist database which would be updated hourly. Internet service providers would then offer two choices of content, one for adults and one for children. I envisage the child content would be the default, with adult content accessed with a pin code, or some such protective device. South Korea is an example of where that ISP regulatory system has been successfully implemented, and Australia is considering it. Further filtering could continue at the personal computer level ““on the fly”” which would look for unacceptable terms and images. Robust internet filtering is a technological area that is fast developing, although it is not there yet, which is why I believe ISPs should take the lead in filtering at the network level. I know the British Standards Institution is developing a kitemark, which is a welcome, if belated, development. Hopefully, technological progress will solve some of the issues that we cannot control now. Webcams and peer-to-peer and encrypted content will always present challenges. I do not intend to predict future technological innovations, but filtering web 2.2 generation content when, for example, eight hours of footage per minute is uploaded on to YouTube, will present challenges. An internet standards authority would be more responsive to new internet trends and lighter on its feet than Government legislation. Perversely, ISPs are being held back from implementing best efforts to protect customers and children lest they be held liable for overblocking or for harmful content being accessed. A number of ISPs do offer content-filtering for children, such as AOL's KOL Jr. pre-school, KOL ages six to 12 and RED ages 13 to 17, and I welcome that, but ISPs are as concerned as I am about the low take-up of available tools. That is why I believe my opt-out approach has merit. An internet standards authority would have the ability to promote its work and improve transparency while also educating parents and ensuring that children surf responsibly. Promoting a safer environment and raising awareness—what I describe as soft power improvements—also present challenges and will cost money. Internet playgrounds should be supervised in the same way as parks used to be supervised. We need to empower parents and teachers so they are able to supervise, advise and guide children in exploring the online world. We need to set up a new co-regulatory structure, an internet standards authority, to fight illegal and harmful content, promote a safer environment and raise awareness. ISPs should deliver an acceptable service for children whereby they would be able safely to access the internet while adults could access all other content through a PIN or similar device. We should ensure that internet companies that advertise carry responsibility messages, such as those we see on alcohol advertising and cigarette packages. A hotline number in the UK is operated by the excellent Internet Watch Foundation, and it should be displayed. We need to empower parents, teachers and children in respect of their responsibilities and the risks of going online. Finally, any internet-ready platform should be sold with a robust, self-updating, tamper-proof internet filter pre-installed. Those proposals are not about censorship; they are about creating the regulatory environment to enable our children to surf safely, so that they can expand the horizons of their knowledge. Of course, I do not believe we can remove all risk to children, but we can make this country a safer place in what, at times, seems to be an increasingly dangerous world for our children.