Contribution
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the next steps that this Government will be taking to protect children online. This Government’s ambition is to be the world leader in shaping an online environment that works for us. We intend to be an active Government that will help to create an online environment that is not just safe, but enabling and empowering. That starts with fixing the fundamentals, and this House can expect to see us acting more quickly and more decisively from now on to keep us safe online.
In December last year, the Government published their action plan to tackle violence against women and girls. I would like to put on record my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who are here today, for their clear ambition and determination that the UK would become the first country in the world where it would be impossible for children to take, share or view nude images online. In June, the Government challenged industry on a three-month timeline to work with us and set out road maps for how they would strengthen device-level protections for children with a view to preventing children from taking, sharing or viewing nude images on phones and tablets.
Today I can update the House on the progress that has been made and the next steps that this Government will take to protect children. Since June, officials from my Department and the Home Office have overseen an unprecedented work programme with Apple and Google, working with senior leaders and engineers to explore new ways of preventing child sexual abuse and strengthening protections for children online. I can report that, following this engagement, Apple and Google have provided the Government with significant commitments. Both companies have developed meaningful changes at operating level to make it harder for children to share nude imagery. We have seen progress in the blocking, not blurring, of nude imagery on underage devices, and this builds on significant milestones already in implementation, including Apple’s roll-out earlier this year of operating system-level age assurance and tighter safety features preventing a child from receiving or sharing nude imagery on iMessage or FaceTime. These proposals are a step in the right direction. However, the truth is that they do not meet the scale of this crisis.
Children are facing unacceptable levels of sexual harm online. They are being groomed, coerced and manipulated into creating and sharing intimate images across online services. The Internet Watch Foundation believes that 91% of these images are self-generated by children. They are used for blackmail and sexual extortion. Each year, around 9,000 child sexual abuse offences involve an online element, with under-18s the subject of almost a quarter of online blackmail. I challenge anyone to listen to those statistics and come to the conclusion that the internet is a safe place for kids or that the Government should not get involved.
This is not the first time in history that new forms of technology have up-ended society, but what is unique to this moment is that the technology has been developed almost exclusively in the private sphere. I am clear that there is a central role for Government in shaping that technology for good, not just to protect from harm—although that is a basic obligation of any Government—but to enable and empower.
When it comes to the development of technology that affects our lives, we are not neutral. In no other walk of life would we tolerate this crisis harming our children, and we will not tolerate it online. For too long, technology companies have failed to protect children from some of the worst harms. To be frank, I am not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that progress will continue at the pace we need it to, while harm is being done now.
For that reason, I make the following announcements to the House. First, the Government today commit to introducing primary legislation to require major tech platforms to build in device-level protections for children. We will introduce the legislation to Parliament as soon as we can, recognising the urgency of the issue while ensuring that we work with colleagues across the House to get it right. We want to see movement on this quickly. If platforms in scope of the draft legislation develop and implement technical solutions while our work is ongoing, we will of course reassess whether legislation is necessary. We know that this is a sector that can, when required, innovate at an extraordinary pace when the chips are down.
Alongside the measures on devices, the Government will, as soon as possible, require that apps used by children prevent children from accessing or sharing nudity. We will explore what legislation is needed to implement that commitment, with a view to moving as quickly as possible. This will ensure that the whole ecosystem changes, tackling the means by which children are most often abused or groomed online. Put simply, we will give tech companies the chance to lead; we will not give them the chance to lag.
These measures, taken together, will make Britain the first country in the world to go this far, and a world leader in online safety. The message we are sending to tech companies is clear: planning must now become implementation, and progress must translate into protections that make a real difference to children’s lives. I give my commitment to all Members of this House, and to anybody listening out there in the country who has been desperately worried about what is happening to our children online, that when it comes to children’s safety, we are not, and never will be, bystanders. I commend this statement to the House.