Baroness Kidron (CB)

My Lords, I have huge sympathy for, and experience of, many of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, but, given the hour, I will speak only to Amendment 145 in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, my noble friend Lord Russell and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Given that I am so critical, I want to say how pleased I am to see the ICO reporting requirements included in the Bill. Amendment 145 is very narrow. It would require the ICO to report specifically and separately on children. It is fair to say that one of the many frustrations for those of us who spend our time advocating for children’s privacy and safety is trying to extrapolate child-specific data from generalised reporting. Often it is not reported because it is useful to hide some of the inadequacies in the level of protection afforded to children. For example, none of the community guidelines enforcement reports published for Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or Snapchat provides a breakdown of the violation rate by age group, even though that would provide valuable information for academics, Governments, legislators, NGOs and, of course, regulators. It was a point of contention between many civil society organisations and Ofcom that there was no evidence that children of different ages react in different ways, which, for anyone who has had children, is clearly not the case. Similarly, for many years we struggled to understand Ofcom’s reporting because older children were included in a group that went up to 24, and it took over 10 years for that to change. It seems to me—I hope the Government agree—that since children are entitled to specific data privacy benefits, it follows that the application and enforcement of those benefits should be reported separately. I hope that the Government can give a quick yes on this small but important amendment.