Keeping children and young people safe online in a digital world that did not exist a generation ago is one of the major challenges we face.
We must do all we can to help give children the childhood they deserve and prepare them for the future at a time of rapid change, especially one shaped by powerful platforms, addictive design, increasingly disturbing content and fast-moving technologies.
To do so, the UK Labour Government is consulting on new measures banning social media for under-16s and raising the digital age of consent from 13 stopping companies using children’s data without their parents’ consent.
Other proposals include overnight curfews and breaks to prevent excessive use and doom-scrolling, stricter enforcement of age verification, blocking the ability for children to send and receive nude images, restrictions for children using AI chatbots and age-restricting or limiting children’s VPN use.
This is in addition to forcing tech companies to take down intimate images shared without consent within 48 hours of it being flagged. Platforms that fail to act could face fines of up to 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue or having services blocked in the UK.
Victims will only need to report an image once. Where an image is reported, it will have to be removed across multiple platforms in one go, and then, automatically deleted at every new upload. These kinds of images will now rightly be treated with the same severity as child sexual abuse and terrorism content.
I’m a member of Parliament’s Women & Equalities Committee and we called for exactly this sort of action in our report on this issue.
Protecting young people and those who’ve become victims of such abhorrent behaviour is paramount. I’m glad that the Government has responded strongly so our laws keep up with these changing and challenging times.