The NSPCC has been campaigning for Duty of Care legislation to protect children from grooming, abuse and harmful content since 2017 and will be working with Parliamentarians and civil society to ensure the Online safety Bill prevents children suffering avoidable harm online.
In September the NSPCC set out six tests that legislation would need to meet if was to deliver comprehensive laws to protect children online.
In March they concluded the legislation is failing on a third of indicators, and these do not appear to have been addressed in the Government’s Draft Online Safety Bill, due to be published today.
Wanless: Complexities of online abuse need tackling
Sir Peter Wanless, NSPCC Chief Executive, said,
“Government has the opportunity to deliver a transformative Online Safety Bill if they choose to make it work for children and families, not just what’s palatable to tech firms.
“The ambition to achieve safety by design is the right one. But this landmark piece of legislation risks falling short if Oliver Dowden does not tackle the complexities of online abuse and fails to learn the lessons from other regulated sectors.
“Successful regulation requires the powers and tools necessary to achieve the rhetoric. Unless Government stands firm on their promise to put child safety front and centre of the Bill, children will continue to be exposed to harm and sexual abuse in their everyday lives which could have been avoided.”
Concerns
The NSPCC said the Online Safety Bill risks:
- Not effectively tackling child sexual abuse at an early stage and failing to place responsibilities on tech firms to address the cross platform nature of abuse
- Being undermined by ineffective enforcement powers that fail to hold senior managers accountable for decisions on whether their products are safe and only holding limited criminal sanctions in reserve. The proposals are weaker than the draft Online Harms legislation recently published in Ireland which includes criminal sanctions for both regulatory breaches and a failure to cooperate with investigations.
- Giving victims of child abuse online less protection than adults get in other regulated markets. In most other sectors an industry levy funds both the regulator and user advocacy arrangements, which is absent in the Online Safety Bill.
Rise in number of online sex crimes against children
It comes as the number of online sex crimes against children recorded by police in the six months from the start of the first national lockdown increased by 17 per cent on the previous year.
NSPCC analysis of the latest Home Office offence data reveals there were 17,699 online child sex offences recorded by police in England and Wales between April and September last year.
That’s an increase from 15,183 during the same period in 2019, and includes:
- More than 14,500 Obscene Publication (Child Sexual Abuse Images) offences – up almost a fifth on 2019
- Nearly 3,200 Sexual Grooming crimes – an increase of 6% from the previous year
Meanwhile, NCMEC, the global clearing house for child abuse reports, latest stats show there was a 28% increase in child abuse reports in 2020 compared with 2019.
Timeline
- Dec 2017 NSPCC were the first to call for tech companies to have a legal duty of care to keep children safe
- April 2018 Launch of NSPCC’s Wild West Web campaign
- Feb 2019 Taming the Wild West Web was published outlining a plan for regulation
- April 2019 Government publishes the Online Harms White Paper
- January 2020 Online Harms paving bill, prepared by the Carnegie Trust and introduced by Lord McNally, was selected for its first reading in the Lords.
- February 2020 Government publish initial consultation to the Online Harms White Paper, announcing Ofcom as the likely watchdog
- September 2020 NSPCC sets out six tests for the Online Harms Bill in its Regulatory Framework
- December 2020 Government published its Online Harms White Paper consultation response
- March 2021 NSPCC analysis of the consultation response found significant improvement is needed in a third of areas of proposed legislation if the Online Safety Bill is to extensively protect children from avoidable harm and abuse.
News shared by Sophie on behalf of the NSPCC. Ed
Image: summerskyephotography under CC BY 2.0
