MP co-launches Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection and calls on the Government to take action
Fiona Bruce MP was part of a Panel of MPs and Peers who today lauched the report of the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection, and called upon the Government to take action.
Fiona, who was a Lead Member on the Inquiry said from Westminster:
‘For the first time through this Inquiry, a clear signal is being sent out from Parliament that much more needs to be done to develop effective methods to protect young people from access to unsuitable internet materials, ideally through an Opt-in system so that parents can be sure that their children cannot access unsuitable material on the internet, but can continue to benefit in a healthy way from use of the internet.
Time and again during our Inquiry, we heard from witnesses who reported an astronomical rise in the viewing of pornographic and violent material by youngsters, particularly teenage boys and of the frequent and accidental stumbling upon adult material by children – for example when one very young child put in the word ‘fairy’. Witlessness’ also spoke of the sense of powerlessness which many parents feel to tackle this issue – partly because so often they are technologically disadvantaged, but also because appropriate action has not been taken by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
This report aims to change that – and as will be seen from the recommendations (cf page 8) calls on the Government to introduce legislation to resolve this issue, one of huge concern to parents, should the ISPs fail to implement the appropriate technological solutions themselves. The Inquiry concluded that ideally this would involve the introduction of an Opt-in filtering content system for all internet accounts throughout the UK. Any other solution would be patchwork and only partly effective’.
Speaking during the launch of the report this morning in Parliament, Fiona commented:
‘the argument that this is censorship simply doesn’t hold water. This is not about censorship - it is about protection. It’s about giving back our children their childhoods. It is about allowing them to grow up free of the awareness of so many issues they simply don’t need to know about. Our Panel of Inquiry heard time and time again from witnesses about how in many cases material, far more explicit and hardcore than many parents realise, is easily accessible at the click of a button by young people. Repeatedly, we were told by witnesses about how damaging this is. Experts told us of concerning changes they are seeing on the part of young people in terms of increased worries about body image, of a reduction in sexual inhibitions to early and risky sexual behaviour, of resultant relationship difficulties which could potentially last long into adulthood and of a desensitising of children and youngsters to violent and sexual aggressive acts. We wouldn’t let our children watch this on TV of films – why allow it on the internet?
The power of that one click of a button for our children to access this material needs to be passed to parents – with one click though an Opt-in system to ensure internet safety for our children.
These recommendations are about empowering parents to be the responsible parents they want to be and letting every child have the childhood they deserve.
We the MPs and Peers on the Inquiry Panel, have a sense of urgency about this. We have not given our time to this report for it to gather dust. Action must follow and we will not be deterred from finding solutions from the so-called technological complexities of resolving this issue. In fact the ISPs do already have the technological capacity to do so – they already screen for gambling and as the reports says – if necessary we will pursue the Government to legislate to resolve this issue’.
