The Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill has today called for 'major changes' to be made to the Bill.
In response, Barnardo’s Interim Co-CEO Michelle Lee-Izu said:
“The Online Safety Bill is a unique opportunity to make the internet safer for children, but it must be strengthened to mandate age verification for all sites containing pornographic material, with Ofcom given the powers to act where needed.
“The Committee is right to support proposals championed by Barnardo’s and many others, for a legal duty on all pornography sites – including commercial pornography sites - to keep children safe. This means making sure that illegal images and videos showing child abuse and violence are not uploaded onto sites – tech companies taking content down days or weeks after countless viewings is just not acceptable.
“The Government must also seek ways to legislate against the implementation of end-to-end encryption which can be used to hide abusive activity.
“We hope the Government will respond to recommendations from the Committee and from leading organisations in this field, and take the actions necessary to make the UK the safest place in the world for children to be online.”
The Government has two months to respond to the committee’s recommendations, with the Bill due to be put to Parliament next year.