Asked by: Lord Moraes (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have had discussions with the government of Australia about any lessons that could be learned from Australia’s introduction of a law to ban under-16s from social media platforms.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government recognises international efforts being made to tackle the issues that arise from harmful content and age-inappropriate experiences on social media. This includes new age-restrictions on certain social media platforms in Australia that are due to take effect from 10 December.
We have a close relationship with Australia and continue to engage closely under the UK-Australia Memorandum of Understanding for Online Safety and Security to share evidence and learn from each other’s approaches to protecting children from harm online.
Asked by: Lord Moraes (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what review they are undertaking, if any, of the duty under the Online Safety Act 2023 for internet service providers to take action to prevent child users accessing harmful and illegal suicide and self-harm content online.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Monitoring and evaluation are key to understanding the effectiveness of the online safety regime. The government and Ofcom are monitoring the regime’s impact through a programme of evaluation work to track the effect of the regime and feed into a statutory Post Implementation Review. The Online Safety Act applies to online user to user services and search services.
Further, Ofcom’s Online Experiences Tracker survey is issued twice a year. The most recent data was published in October covering the experiences of adults (aged 18+). The first wave of data from the new Children’s Online Safety Tracker will be published later this year, and the second wave will be published in Spring 2026.
We also engage with civil society and monitor research and reports they publish on online harms.
Asked by: Lord Moraes (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they are making to ensure that the UK–EU data adequacy decision is renewed before its expiration on 27 December.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises the importance of our EU adequacy decisions and continues to engage with the European Commission to support their successful renewal, acknowledging that this is a unilateral process undertaken by the EU.
The Government welcomed the publication of the European Commission’s draft adequacy decisions in July, which conclude that the UK continues to provide an adequate level of data protection, and looks forward to the completion of the adoption process ahead of the 27 December deadline.