Response to second phase announcement on children's online safety
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has published the second part of its response to the "Growing up in the Online World" consultation. (Here's our analysis of the first part of the response - the announcement of a social media ban for under-16s and other measures - and our response.)
Here's today's press release and here's the Written Ministerial Statement detailing the proposals. These cover default curfews and restrictions on infinite scroll and personalised recommender algorithms for 16-17 year olds (though these defaults can be reversed); action at some point in the future on AI chatbots, including jointly with DHSC to address harmful therapy bots; no action on VPNs; and more media literacy support for parents and children.
A suite of documents supporting the second phase of this response have been published, many of them updating and completing documents initially published to support the announcement of the ban a month ago.
- The consultation response itself
- An update of the statement on what the Government proposals mean for children
- An update of the full analysis of the consultation responses
- An update on Ministerial engagement during the consultation
- A research report into children's circumvention of age restrictions
Despite the array of documents supporting this announcement and the press promotion of it today, this is a flimsy package of measures.
The new Prime Minister must take a step back and consider the scale of the risks facing children - and all users - online and bring forward a more comprehensive approach to online safety than this. We set out some suggestions for him in our recent statement.
Continuing to follow the reactive, piecemeal approach taken by the current DSIT Ministerial team of rolling out fragments of policy or piecemeal legislative measures in response to political or public pressure will barely scratch the surface of the changes required to keep children, and all users, safe online. It will also fail to deliver what parents, online safety experts, and campaigners want from the Government, and raises more questions than it answers about how the ongoing implementation and enforcement of the Online Safety Act fits into this approach.
We quickly need a clear, comprehensive, and adaptive approach to online safety and AI regulation that gets at the root causes of harm. This means holding social media and AI companies to the same safety standards as the manufacturers of all other consumer products. If these companies can’t prove their products are safe before use and don't remove intentionally harmful yet profitable design features they should be excluded from the market.
We have to stop playing politics with safety, end the live-testing of unsafe products on children, and ensure that tech products are safe-by-design from the start for all users, regardless of age.
