New Online Safety Bill backed by charity 

Leading Christian charity CARE (Christian Action Research and Education) lends unequivocal backing to a new Online Safety Bill

Tabled by Baroness Howe, wife of former chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe, it is the fifth attempt by Independent Peer to ensure a change in the law. It would require all internet service providers to introduce robust age-verification before allowing filters to be lifted.

It will also mean any website looking to stream hard-core pornographic material to UK customers from outside Britain will be able to do so only if they have robust age-verification measures in place. 
 
Speaking as her new Online Safety Bill received its First Reading in the House of Lords on Friday (29 May), Baroness Howe said it made good the failures of the current system by applying to 100 per cent of the market, and thus to 100 per cent of households with children.

Baroness Howe said, 'I am delighted that my new Online Safety Bill has had its First Reading.
 
'The so-called ‘default-on’ filtering solution that the Government has championed only applies to 90 per cent of the market leaving many thousands of children beyond it reach.
 
'Moreover, and of central importance, there is no age-verification process to establish that a person lifting the default filters is 18 years or over before allowing the filters are lifted.
 
'This is completely unacceptable. Our children deserve better.'
  
Responding to the bill, CARE’s Director of Parliamentary Affairs Dr Dan Boucher said: 'CARE wholeheartedly welcomes Baroness Howe’s determination to force a change in the law and we will be backing her Bill every step of the way.
 
'The fact that our online protection provisions may be better than those of many other countries is no reason to hold back when we have the option of significantly further enhancing child safety online.’
  
Baroness Howe continued: 'Under my Bill any foreign web site wishing to provide pornographic services to people in the UK will be required to get a license that will depend upon their having robust age verification procedures.
 
'If they do not fulfil these licensing obligations, their license will be revoked and payments to these websites will be blocked.
 
'I am very pleased to see that the Conservative manifesto made a clear commitment to introducing a requirement for web sites containing pornographic material to have in place robust age verification procedures.
 
'It will be important that this seminal commitment is implemented in such a way that it catches sites based in the UK and also sites based outside the UK which are the source of most pornography viewed online in the UK.
 
'My Bill directly addresses this challenge and I hope the government will therefore find it useful.'



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