Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

438ED: After Clause 166, insert the following new Clause—
“Police protocols when investigating the death of a child(1) The Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 is amended as follows.(2) After section 27 (common law rules as to criminal investigations), insert—“Inclusion of guidance on collecting digital data when investigating the death of a child(1) Within six months the day on which the Crime and Policing Act 2026 is passed, the code of practice under section 23 must include protocols that a person of a prescribed authority must adhere to when investigating the death of a child.(2) These protocols must include the treatment of potential online harm as a primary line of enquiry.(3) In order to treat a potential online harm as a primary line of enquiry, a person of a prescribed authority, must—(a) seize and forensically examine digital devices as soon as is reasonably possible;(b) take all reasonable steps to capture early digital evidence and account data, taking into account that online services delete user data after a short period of inactivity;(c) document a child’s activity on all known online services, including recommended content, interactions with other users, content viewed, content uploaded, and any relevant metadata.(4) Where an investigation gives evidence that a service regulated by the Online Safety Act 2023 may have breached that Act, Ofcom must be notified and supplied with the evidence.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would update statutory guidance issued to police to include guidance on effective evidence-collecting during an investigation into the death of a child.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their support.

It is heartbreaking to be here again. I first raised this issue over four years ago after witnessing Senior Coroner Walker’s difficulties in obtaining data from US tech firms during his investigation into the death of Molly Russell. Senior Coroner Walker, Ian Russell—Molly’s father—and the family’s lawyers fought for years to secure data that revealed the role played by Pinterest and Meta, and this evidence was central to the coroner’s finding that both services,

“contributed to her death in a more than minimal way”.

Data is crucial. The original amendments were also recommended in the pre-legislative Joint Committee report on the draft Online Safety Bill. We debated them at length during the Bill’s proceedings. We got agreement to put them into the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which fell when the election was called. We tried to push them through in the wash-up and finally, after years of campaigning by bereaved families, they were included in the Data (Use and Access) Act last year.

I say all this because I want the Minister, when she replies, to weigh up her words carefully, knowing that the bereaved families, who have worked so hard to pass these provisions for so many years—some of whom are in the Gallery today—are still waiting. Yesterday, I met several bereaved families, including Mia Janin’s father, Mariano, who held a photograph of his daughter as he described a recent meeting with the Secretary of State, Liz Kendall. He said, “I thought it was a good meeting until I realised it was the same meeting we had with Peter Kyle a year ago—except this year we needed a bigger room because there are more bereaved parents, more dead children”.

I also heard yesterday of a newly bereaved parent who tried to get the police to access her daughter’s data, only to be told by Gloucestershire Constabulary’s occupational health department to talk to Ellen Roome: “She knows more about the law than the entire Gloucestershire police force”. I spoke to Ellen, who is with us in the Gallery, and she told me that the police downloaded her son Jools’s data in 2022 but are only now beginning to examine it.

We have a law, but it is not working, and I want to set out three reasons why. First, although coroners can ask Ofcom to issue a data preservation notice that requires online services to retain data in advance of issuing a Schedule 5 notice, they are not routinely doing so. Although Section 101 enables Ofcom to use its information-gathering powers when it receives a Schedule 5 notice from a coroner, it is not routinely doing that either.

I have eight separate letters from the Government saying who has been written to and outlining what guidance has been sent to whom, but still bereaved parents come to my door. For some, the loss of their child is still raw and they are blindly trying to work out the system; others are heartbroken that the opportunity to preserve data is long gone because they found out about the law too late. Sometimes, the coroner does not know that the measure exists or does not understand that data disappears and wants to wait for the police investigation before even considering such a request. All these different reasons undermine the fundamental purpose of the law.

To be absolutely clear, I have no criticism of the coroners. They are not experts in digital systems and cannot reasonably be expected to know that even a brief engagement, such as hovering over a link or pausing on a piece of content, can influence how an algorithm responds. Nor are they expected to know that platforms routinely infer and group children into behavioural cohorts relating, for example, to low mood, late-night use, social isolation or identity exploration. Nor are they supposed to know that seemingly fleeting online interactions can leave persistent data traces. The measure was specifically designed for Ofcom to take that burden from the coroners, but that has not happened.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I can start again; I am very grateful to my noble friend for taking over. I say now that I would welcome a conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, as she and I discussed when we met briefly the other day. The Government do have concerns that being too prescriptive in legislation may create more problems than it solves because the legislation would need to be amended every time there were changes in technology or in operational practices. Your Lordships will be well aware, given our many late nights spent scrutinising primary legislation, of which tonight may be another, how clunky, cumbersome and time-consuming it can be to keep amending primary legislation.

For this reason, it is the Government’s view that our shared objective can be achieved using non-statutory guidance. Police forces are well used to applying and following guidance in a range of areas, from missing people to information sharing. Having said that, I make the point that I would welcome a conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, to see whether we can find a way through this by working together to do so.

I turn to Amendments 474 and 475. Again, this is an issue that the Government take very seriously. I reassure your Lordships that we are carefully considering the issues that these amendments raise and are grateful for the continued engagement of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the bereaved families. Taken together, these amendments would require coroners to notify Ofcom within five days of a child’s death, triggering a standard form to request data preservation.

Once again, we can see the appeal of such a requirement. The problem is that it would apply to all cases of deaths in the over-fives, regardless of whether social media may be relevant to their death. So, for example, where a child died as a result of a road traffic collision or of cancer, it is unlikely in most cases that social media retention would be of use to the police or the coroner. Therefore, while the Government are sympathetic to the aims of these amendments, it is our view that we need carefully to consider any possible unintended consequences.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

On that point, does the Minister have the number of children over five who die in other ways, just so the Committee can understand how much of a burden that might be?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I cannot give the noble Baroness the answer now, but I can write to her with that data.

Our view is that we need carefully to consider any possible unintended consequences; the need not to place a disproportionate burden on those investigating; and how such a provision might be drafted so as not to capture deaths which are outwith the scope of the amendment.

To conclude, we are not saying no. What I am saying is that I understand the noble Baroness’s concern that the existing statutory provision for the preservation of a deceased child’s social media data should operate as effectively as possible and we will consider carefully what further steps could be taken. As I have just mentioned, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I spoke briefly and agreed to meet, and I am happy to extend that to include Ministers from both the Home Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

I look forward to updating the House on Report on this important topic. I cannot update the Committee in relation to the issues with the United States now, but I will write to the noble Baroness in relation to that. In the meantime, I hope she will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I start by accepting all the various offers to meet the Minister and thank her for her tone in her response and for expanding it to the other departments as necessary. Before I withdraw the amendment, however, I want to make a couple of things very clear.

First, this sits in the broader issue of failure to have the Online Safety Act implemented properly. It sits in the broader issue of why children are dying at all. Moreover—I think I have to say this both on my own behalf and on behalf of the bereaved parents—I am very grateful for everybody’s gratitude, but we do not want gratitude; we want action. I am sorry, but on the actual points—six months, the same letter about the guidance that never comes—I do not accept that there cannot be a way of exempting sick children, and I would like to know how many children died in car crashes because someone was on the phone.

I do not think it is an excuse, and I really feel at this point that officials and Ministers are way too comfortable with unintended consequences. How about the House starts with dealing with the intended consequences of its legislation that are not being properly implemented? With that, and the promise to come back on Report, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 438ED withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

266: Clause 63, page 81, line 34, at end insert—
“46D Child sexual abuse image-generation risk assessment(1) A provider of an online service, including but not limited to a generative AI large language model, must risk assess the likelihood of their service being used to create or facilitate the creation of a CSA image or images as defined by section 46A.(2) If a risk is identified in a CSA risk assessment—(a) where the provider is regulated by the Online Safety Act 2023, a provider must report the risk and agree to steps to reduce, mitigate and manage the risks with OFCOM;(b) where the provider is not regulated by the Online Safety Act 2023, a provider must agree to steps to reduce, mitigate and manage the risks of their online service being used to create or facilitate the creation of CSA images with the National Crime Agency.(3) Where a provider regulated by the Online Safety Act 2023 fails to agree to or implement steps to reduce, mitigate and manage the risks with OFCOM (see subsection (2)(a)), they can be subjected to OFCOM’s enforcement powers set out in Part 7, Chapter 6 (enforcement powers) of that Act.(4) Where a provider not regulated by the Online Safety Act 2023 fails to agree to or implement steps to reduce, mitigate and manage the risks with the National Crime Agency (see subsection (2)(b)), they commit an offence.(5) A provider that commits an offence under this section is liable to be issued with a penalty notice by the National Crime Agency.(6) In this section a “penalty notice” means a notice requiring its recipient to pay a penalty of an amount not exceeding whichever is the greater of—(a) £18 million, or(b) 10% of a provider’s qualifying worldwide revenue for the most recent complete accounting period.(7) A penalty notice may be reissued where a provider continues to commit an offence under this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is intended to ensure that services that do not fall into scope of Clause 63 as currently drafted still assess and mitigate the risk of their services being used as an AI child sexual abuse generator.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 266, I will speak also to Amendments 479 and 480, all of which are in my name. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Russell, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, for their support.

All three amendments concern illegal or harmful online activity. Amendment 266 places a legal duty on online services, including generative AI services, to conduct risk assessments evaluating the likelihood that their systems could be used to create or facilitate child sexual abuse material. Subsection (1) of the proposed new clause establishes that duty. Subsection (2) requires providers to report the results to Ofcom or the National Crime Agency, depending on whether or not they are regulated under the Online Safety Act. Subsections (3) to (7) set out the enforcement mechanisms, drawing on Ofcom’s existing enforcement powers under the OSA or equivalent powers for the NCA.

Amendment 266 complements Clause 63, which creates the new offence relating to the supply of CSA image generators to which the Minister has just spoken, but it is in addition to those powers. In June 2023, the BBC reported that the open-source AI model Stable Diffusion was being used to generate child sexual abuse material. Researchers at Stanford University subsequently found that Stable Diffusion had been trained on datasets containing child sexual abuse material. This issue is not confined to a single model. The Internet Watch Foundation and the chair of the AI Security Institute have warned of the potential for open-source AI models to be used for the creation of CSAM.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am very happy to arrange a meeting with an appropriate Minister. I would be very happy to sit in on it. Other Ministers may wish to take the lead on this, because there are technology issues as well. I have Home Office responsibilities across the board, but I have never refused a meeting with a Member of this House in my 16 months here and I am not going to start now, so the answer to that question is yes. The basic presumption at the moment is that we are not convinced that the technology is yet at the stage that the noble Lord believes it to be, but that is a matter for future operation. I again give him the assurance that, in the event that the technology proves to be successful, the Government will wish to examine it in some detail.

I have absolutely no doubt that we will revisit these matters but, for the moment, I hope that the noble Baroness can withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for his amendment and his fierce following of this issue, and for bringing it to our attention. I recognise that this is a Home Office Bill and that some of these things cross to DSIT, but we are also witnessing crime. The Home Office must understand that not everything can be pushed to DSIT.

Your Lordships have just met the tech Lords. These are incredibly informed people from all over the Chamber who share a view that we want a technological world that puts kids front and centre. We are united in that and, as the Minister has suggested, we will be back.

I have three very quick points. First, legal challenges, operational difficulties and the capacity of the NCA and Ofcom were the exact same reasons why Clause 63 was not in the Online Safety Bill or the Data (Use and Access) Bill. It is unacceptable for officials to always answer with those general things. Many noble Lords said, “It’s so difficult”, and, “This is new”, with the Online Safety Bill. It is not new: we raised these issues before. If we had acted three or four years ago, we would not be in this situation. I urge this Government to get on the front foot, because we know what is coming.

Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her kind words about the new offence with respect to child sexual abuse image generators and I take the opportunity to recognise the work of the specialist police unit that has worked alongside me on these and other issues. Working at the front line of child sexual abuse detection and enforcement is to come up against some of the most sordid and horrendous scenarios that can make you lose faith in humanity, so I want to put on record our huge debt to those in the unit for their courage and commitment.

I was also pleased to hear the Minister’s commitment to criminalise pornography that depicts acts of strangulation and suffocation. This is one of a number of concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, will speak to shortly, and I shall be supporting her on all her amendments. During the Recess, I chaired a meeting of extremely senior health professionals and the prevalence of young people presenting in clinical settings suffering from violence and abuse during sex was simply horrific, with outcomes ranging from fear and trauma to death itself. There is an epidemic of sexual violence, normalised and driven by pornography, and I very much hope that the noble Baroness will have the support of the whole House on this matter.

I have four further areas of concern and I am going to touch on each very briefly. First, this House successfully introduced amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Act to empower coroners to require technology companies to preserve data when a child has died. At the time, we proposed that preservation notices should be automatic and that statutory guidance should be developed, but this was refused. We now have the law, but bereaved families are still unable to benefit from its provisions, because preservation notices are not being used quickly enough, and nor are the powers fully understood. It is simply heartbreaking to see a parent who has just lost a child become a victim of a system that does not understand or use its own powers. I will be tabling amendments to make the new law work as was promised and as Parliament intended.

Secondly, we have all seen media reports of chatbots suggesting illegal content or activity to children. I remain unclear about the Government’s appetite to strengthen Ofcom’s codes or to resolve the differences of opinion between Parliament and the regulator about the scope of the Online Safety Act. Nevertheless, I will be seeking to ensure that AI chatbots that suggest or facilitate illegal activity are addressed in the Crime and Policing Bill.

Thirdly, as I have indicated, I welcome the CSAM generator offence in the Bill, but a gap remains and I will be tabling amendments to place clear, legally binding duties on developers of generative AI systems to conduct risk assessments, identifying whether and how their systems could be misused for this narrow but devastating purpose.

Finally, I am curious about youth diversion orders. I am by no means against them, but I would like to understand whether they are to be backed up by other support, such as autism screening and therapeutic support. Many at the front line of this issue say that there is a serious lack of resource, and I would be interested to hear from Ministers how young people are to be supported once diverted, and whether the Government have plans to look further at the responsibility of tech companies that deliberately design for constant engagement, even if extreme content is being used simply as bait. It is no longer possible to consider the online world as separate from any other environment and, if we do not impose the legal order we require elsewhere, we will continue to create a place of lawlessness and abuse.