Recommendations by parliamentarians could significantly improve the draft Online Safety Bill
On Tuesday 14 December, the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill published its report after several months of scrutiny of the Government’s draft legislation. Read techUK's full summary and take on the report here.
Commenting on the report, Antony Walker, Dep. CEO techUK said:
“The joint committee report is well thought through and does a good job of disentangling and restructuring a complex Draft Bill. We welcome the focus on clarity, proportionality and a risk-based approach for the 24,000 companies in scope.
There is much in this report that could significantly improve the Government’s Draft Bill. Importantly it focuses on the need for the Bill to be crystal clear about what it is asking businesses to do. Lack of clarity has been one of the sector’s biggest concerns.
The ultimate test of this legislation remains whether it enables in-scope companies and the regulator to make swift and effective decisions without unintended consequences for fundamental freedoms online.
The committee has recognised the widespread concerns about using the term ‘legal but harmful’ and has proposed an alternative approach for a single test for ‘regulated activity’ which could be an improvement and deserves serious consideration.
The committee recommendations to streamline the child safety duties with the Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) would ensure greater consistency with existing legislation on child safety. We also welcome the recommendation to ensure Ofcom’s independence and limit the powers of the Secretary of State.
Overall, the report takes a nuanced and proportionate risk-based approach, however, there are areas of concern:
- There is a risk that taken together, these proposals could amount to a requirement for general monitoring of user behaviour with a negative impact on individual fundamental rights.
- There is also a risk that the extension of scope to include fraud could over burden the communications regulator. We believe the issue of financial fraud should remain in the remit of the Financial Conduct Authority.
- There is also concern that a potentially overly prescriptive approach to age assurance could lead to the age gating of services to the detriment of young people.
The next phase of this process must include thorough engagement by Government with in-scope services to get into the detail of how the Bill will work in practice for different companies.
We encourage Government to come forward with a revised and improved Bill quickly so that we can get this new regulation into law.”
Antony Walker
Antony Walker
Antony Walker is deputy CEO of techUK, which he played a lead role in launching in November 2013.
Antony is a member of the senior leadership team and has overall responsibility for techUK’s policy work. Prior to his appointment in July 2012 Antony was chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), the UK’s independent advisory group on broadband policy. Antony was closely involved in the development of broadband policy development in the UK since the BSG was established in 2001 and authored several major reports to government. He also led the development of the UK’s world leading Open Internet Code of Practice that addresses the issue of net neutrality in the UK. Prior to setting up the BSG, Antony spent six years working in Brussels for the American Chamber of Commerce following and writing about telecoms issues and as a consultant working on EU social affairs and environmental issues. Antony is a graduate of Aberdeen University and KU Leuven and is also a Policy Fellow Alumni of the Centre for Science and Policy at Cambridge University.
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