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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I apologise for being on my feet yet again. Amendment 149 requires internet service providers and mobile phone operators to promote online safety and to provide consumers with information on filtering options prominently at the point of purchase and throughout the duration of the contract. It does not prescribe how they should go about doing so; neither does it require them to produce filtering software of their own. It simply requires that ISPs and MPOs make buyers aware of filtering options, thereby promoting child safety online, just as toy makers, traffic light wardens and shopkeepers already do offline. In Committee the Minister suggested that the amendment was unnecessary because the task that it seeks to address is already taken care of by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. Having studied the Minister’s speech and the excellent work of the UKCCIS carefully, I am, however, even more convinced of the need for my amendment. As the Minister knows, that body is a coalition of concerned bodies that seek to promote child safety on the basis of voluntary self-regulation and observation of best practice. On this basis, there are some important things that it can do and some very important things that it cannot. One of the things that it can do, and is doing, is to promote the idea of the BSI filtering kitemark so that people considering filtering options will be able to identify safe and reliable filtering technologies. This is very welcome, but while the kitemark is a good mechanism to ensure the quality of filtering products, it does not and cannot ensure parental knowledge of filtering software per se. While the UKCCIS does good educational campaigns, such as "Zip it, Lock it, Flag it", these initiatives are not permanent, as my filtering amendment would be. Campaigns, as we all know, come and go. That there is a pressing need for the filtering amendment is eloquently demonstrated by UKCCIS itself in its annual report, which shows that only, ""15 per cent of parents whose child’s phone can be used to access the internet say parental controls are enabled"." That comes from Ofcom, March/April 2009. This suggests a real lack of awareness of filtering options and what they can do and the challenges surrounding this are becoming more pressing with newer handsets that allow unfettered access to the internet. Interestingly, a Home Office report entitled The Sexualisation of Young People, already referred to during today’s debate—the author being the prominent, well-known psychologist, Linda Papadopoulos—recommends that game consoles and mobile phones should be sold with parental filtering mechanisms turned on. In summary, this amendment is needed for three reasons. First, while some ISPs and MPOs already provide information on filtering, there are still companies that do not. They should. This is something that the UKCCIS cannot make them do and the voluntary basis of education is too slow. It took the industry far longer than was appropriate, and many more years than the Government wanted it to take, for companies to sign up to standards relating to child pornography. Secondly, while many companies provide information on filtering, not all do it in a prominent way at the point of sale and—I emphasise—throughout the duration of the contract. Again, UKCCIS cannot oblige companies to do this. Finally, there is evidence that more work needs to be done to educate parents, as the UKCCIS safety strategy suggests. I do not believe that it is fair to place the high burden of expectation that the Minister has thrust upon the UKCCIS, which, for reasons I have set out, it cannot possibly deliver by itself. The combined effect of Amendment 149 and the work of that body, however, would put in place a credible framework and I believe, frankly, that our children deserve nothing less. I beg to move.