| answer text |
<p>The government is committed to ensuring children are protected from accessing inappropriate
content online. As we announced on 16 October last year, the government has decided
that the policy objective of protecting children online from age inappropriate content
can be best delivered through our wider online harms proposals. Our Online Harms proposals
will deliver a higher level of protection for children and we expect companies to
use a proportionate range of tools, including age assurance and age verification technologies,
to prevent children accessing age-inappropriate content such as online pornography.
This approach will achieve a more consistent and comprehensive approach to harmful
content across different sites and go further than the Digital Economy Act’s focus
on online pornography on commercial adult sites.</p><p>We will publish a Full Government
Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation later this year. We will follow
the full Government Response with legislation, which we are working on at pace, and
will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.</p><p>The British Board of Film
Classification, while designated as the age verification regulator under the Digital
Economy Act, commissioned research on children’s access to pornographic content online.
The research, published in early 2020, explored young people’s interactions with,
and attitudes towards, online pornography and age verification. We will continue to
develop our evidence base on online harms ahead of the implementation of the new online
harms regulatory framework.</p><p>As a result of Covid-19 lockdown measures we expect
more people, including children, to be spending more time online. Although it is too
early to confidently analyse patterns from this period, there is universal concern
about child online safety. We are working closely with technology companies, law enforcement
and civil society to monitor trends, and to support users to understand and manage
the risks and benefits of being online during this period.</p><p>Ministers and officials
have regular meetings and discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, including
children’s charities, on a variety of issues. We engaged with a number of children’s
charities on our proposals to protect children through the new online harms regulatory
framework, as part of our wider public consultation on the Online Harms White Paper
last year. Details of Ministerial meetings are published quarterly on the<a href="https://www.gov.uk/"
target="_blank"> Gov.uk</a> website.</p><p><strong><p><p></strong></p>
|
|
