DTI Committee & DCMS Committee joint oral evidence session on Ofcom's Annual Plan 2007/08
The script below is an extract from the Trade and Industry Committee and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee joint oral evidence session on Ofcom’s Annual Plan 2007/08 on 17th April 2007.
This is an UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT and neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.
Q44 Miss Kirkbride: This morning we heard on the news that the amount of pornographic material of children has trebled on the internet. The other day we heard of a young person who committed suicide; and cases of what we would consider inappropriate use of the internet mushroom and we are all worried about children's access to it. Do you think that the internet service providers are doing enough to try and block inappropriate material? Could the industry do more? Is it possible to control the internet?
Lord Currie of Marylebone: I think that is a key question we have debated and will go on debating because it is a moving issue. Clearly there is a provision of quite a lot of content that is inappropriate, and measures for dealing with that are complex. It is a matter of the ISPs cooperating with others. The Internet Watch Foundation has done a very good job in terms of child pornography here in the UK but there are problems of international access. It is a complex area. Of course Ofcom itself has no direct powers of regulation of the internet. Indeed, if there was a thought we might be given it we would have to think about what was feasible in that area, because it is a very complex area. It is clearly one of huge public interest and public concern.
Mr Richards: This will become a bigger and bigger issue over time. At the moment you are seeing the difficult, most extreme end of it, child pornography and so on. As David said, we have got a good model in this country for takedown. The Internet Watch Foundation is a very effective organisation. The vast majority of this child pornography which has been identified is based in other countries particularly, as I understand it, Russia and the US. Again, the other question which is bound to emerge here is what can you do on a multi-lateral or international basis if this is an intrinsically global, international problem, which I suspect it is. There is a lot we can think about in the UK. We can always ask ourselves whether we can do more; but there is an international dimension to this.
Q45 Miss Kirkbride: Is there anything more you could do with reference to children as opposed to child pornography and their access to material, blocking of sites? Are there more powers you would like? Could more be done to protect children from whatever it is they are accessing that would be inappropriate? Is there anything you would like to have as a power, or you would like to see companies do?
Lord Currie of Marylebone: We clearly have some powers in respect of conventional broadcasting and television-like things which appear over the internet; but what we do not have are powers in any way to affect how people, children or others, access content on the internet. I think it is a very interesting question about whether the industry can provide smarter navigational devices of the kind we have in conventional broadcasting that would actually be effective in the internet. Google meets SkyPlus with pin protection, that type of thing. If one could make that happen, that would be something I am sure would be very valuable to very many worried parents, because this is a very concerning issue.
Mr Richards: A very big concern here is, one of the problems we have is that children are so far in advance of their parents in understanding the technologies and what they can do and what they can find, that parents have got to catch up. One of the issues here is, we use analogies from media literacy, enabling and encouraging parents, and indeed children, to be able to use more of the tools that are already available to protect themselves and their children. One very simple example of this is the history tab on Internet Explorer which of course the vast majority of parents do not know how to use. As soon as you know how to use that you can see exactly where your children have been. That functionality is there already. There is other relatively simple technology which can block pornographic images and so on and so forth. You obviously cannot avoid the fact that people are going to be able to go all over the world to access sites, video images and so on and so forth. One of the big challenges we have got is getting the population to a place where they are more aware and comfortable with the tools they can already use and use in the future to protect children.
Q46 Miss Kirkbride: My note here says that the European Commission are going to have a policy on this very shortly. I was wondering whether you are engaged in that policy, and if they have anything more to say than you have just said now and, therefore, what policy could it possibly be? You do not have to answer if there is not one.
Lord Currie of Marylebone: We have been engaged in a debate with the Commission and other European countries around the whole ABMS Directive, and the revision of that, where there was a proposal to extend broadcast-type regulation across into the internet in a way that we felt was impracticable. Those debates have moved on. We now have a very sensible modification of the ABMS. Whether the Commission has other initiatives in mind is something we will await with interest.
Mr Richards: I suspect their initiative will be similar to what we are already doing here. I think it is likely to be a general promotion of media literacy, awareness, capability of European citizens to use these kinds of tools.
Lord Currie of Marylebone: As Ed has said, we have been concerned to emphasise that the approach we think can work in this area is a co-regulatory approach where the major players take action of an appropriate kind, and self-regulation that ultimately it is going to depend on the regulation that the individual user imposes on the system, and that does require media literacy to make that happen. We have been arguing that with the Commission. I think they have taken the point that actually extending old-fashioned regulation across to this vibrant, wholly new area with fantastic benefits, but also some real downsides, is just not practical.
Page Created: Wed, May 2nd, 2007
Page Modified: Wed, May 2nd, 2007
