Damian Hinds

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to broaden the debate, which I do not think you would encourage me to do at this late stage, Madam Deputy Speaker. However, he makes a very important point about self-regulation in this sector. The public, parents, and indeed children look to us to make sure we have their best interests at heart. The Online Safety Act may only say that age minima should be enforced “consistently” rather than well, but I do not think the will of this Parliament was that it would be okay to enforce a minimum age limit consistently badly. What we meant was that if the law says right now that the age minimum is 13, or if it is 16 in the future—or whatever other age it might be—companies should take reasonable steps to enforce it. There is more checking than there used to be, but it is still very limited. The recent 5Rights report on Instagram’s teen accounts said that all its avatars were able to get into social media with only self-reported birth dates and no additional checks. That means that many thousands of children under the nominal age of 13 are on social media, and that there are many more thousands who are just over 13 but who the platform thinks are 15, 16 or 17, or perhaps 18 or 19. That, of course, affects the content that is served to them. Either Ofcom or the ICO could tighten up the rules on the minimum age, but amendment 9 would require that to happen in order for companies to be compliant with the ICO regulation. The technology does exist, although it is harder to implement at the age 13 than at 18—of course, the recent Ofcom changes are all about those under the age of 18—but it is possible, and that technology will develop further. Ultimately, this is about backing parents who have a balance to strike: they want to make sure that their children are fully part of their friendship groups and can access all those opportunities, but also want to protect them from harm. Parents have a reasonable expectation that their children will be protected from wholly inappropriate content.