Education Secretary: Letter to Children’s Commissioner on online pornography

The Education Secretary @GavinWilliamson and Culture Secretary @OliverDowden have today (24 May) written to the Children’s Commissioner Dame @Rachel_deSouza asking her to work with them on driving work to protect children on the internet, particularly against access to pornography online. 

It follows publication of last week’s Online Safety Bill and comes as data published by the NSPCC today reveals more than 350 calls have been made to the Report Abuse in Education helpline set up by the Department for Education last month, launched alongside a review by Ofsted of sexual abuse in schools.

Today, @OliverDowden and I have written to @ChildrensComm asking her to help us do more to protect children from harmful online content including pornography before the Online Safety Bill comes into effect. pic.twitter.com/3oreitf5sf

— Gavin Williamson (@GavinWilliamson) May 24, 2021

The full letter includes the following detail:

“We are clear that tech companies must not wait for regulation to protect children from harmful content.

“We agreed we would work with you to get your input on whether there are actions we can take now to further protect children before the Online Safety Bill comes into effect… We would also welcome your views on how to work with schools, parents and charities to support them around building strong social norms against underage access to pornography, around children using the internet safely and educating those groups on the impact that some internet content can have on healthy sex and relationships.

“We would like to invite you to a roundtable with tech companies, civil society, law enforcement and schools to discuss what more can be done ahead of legislation.”

New measures not enough to protect children from internet porn

@LordsCommsCom – Proposed new online safety laws fail to give children strong enough protection from online porn, peers have warned.

The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee is concerned that pornography websites which do not allow users to share content are not covered by the government’s draft Online Safety Bill.

In a letter to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, the committee welcomes the draft Bill’s protections for children against content which may be harmful to them but wants the government to go further.

Lord Gilbert of Panteg, chair of the committee, said:

“Keeping children safe online is essential.

“Ensuring that these websites take appropriate steps to prevent children from accessing them, and ensuring that they do not host illegal content, is crucial.

“We share the government’s aim of making the internet safer for our citizens. Britain has an opportunity to lead the world in human-rights based internet regulation. We must get this right.”

The committee has outlined other areas where evidence which it has heard in its inquiry into freedom of expression online “points to some different legislative solutions than the ones currently selected by the government”, including the definition of harm, ‘content of democratic importance’ and journalistic content.