Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of allowing parents to be able to have (a) access to and (b) ownership of their children's digital profiles and posts on social media.
Answered by Paul Scully
Protecting children online is a government priority and the strongest safeguards in the Online Safety Bill are for children. As well as protecting children from illegal content and activity, providers of services which are likely to be accessed by children will be required to assess the risk of harm their service poses for children, put in place proportionate safety measures to protect children, and monitor these for effectiveness. If a child encounters, or is the subject of illegal or harmful content and activity, parents, guardians and children will also be able to report it easily and, where appropriate, receive support.
Ofcom will set out the steps that providers can take to comply with the child safety duties in codes of practice and, where proportionate, this could include the use of parental controls or linked accounts for children of certain age groups. The Information Commissioner’s Age Appropriate Design Code sets out standards on the use of parental controls which providers must follow to safeguard children’s right to privacy.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether a (a) procurement process was conducted and (b) contract has been signed for Starlink satellite internet constellation to provide the 3,000 low-Earth orbit small satellites to help very hard to reach places access broadband; and for what reasons OneWeb in which the Government owns an interest has not been included in the trial.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The trials will assess the technological capability of, and end-user response to, new low latency Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite platforms across an expected maximum of 15 locations. The decision to use Starlink equipment for the first four sites, which are located in National Parks, was based on the immediate availability of equipment, user need and the requirement to use unobstructive antenna of a size appropriate to the locations.
All commercial decisions related to these trials have been, and will be, taken in accordance with the Department’s commercial purchasing guidelines, ensuring that the Government does not show undue favour to any single supplier. As previously announced, DCMS remains in discussion with OneWeb on how they might contribute to trials at larger and more complex sites in future, with the expectation that both Starlink and OneWeb systems will be tested as part of this trial.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps her Department has taken in helping to support the development of exascale supercomputing technology.
Answered by Paul Scully
At present, the UK does not have exascale capability. Exascale systems are at an early stage of deployment globally. The US’ first exascale system, Frontier, was brought online earlier this year. As for Japan and the EU, they have not reached exascale capability yet. The first EU’s exascale system, Jupiter, is expected to be deployed in 2023.
In September 2021, DCMS took on responsibility for coordination of activity and policy development for large-scale computing (LSC).
The Future of Compute review, independently led by Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, will build on the 2021 report by the Government Office for Science (Large-scale computing: the case for greater UK coordination) which set out the building blocks to creating a world-class computing ecosystem. The Future of Compute review will produce recommendations on the UKs compute capability over the next decade and the interventions required to ensure that UK researchers and businesses can fully exploit world-class compute infrastructure to support science, innovation and growth.
The Future of Compute review will contain an overview of the international advanced compute landscape. Ahead of the review’s publication, the Top500 list provides an up-to-date assessment of international compute capabilities and a ranking of the most powerful systems globally.
The review will be published in due course.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent estimate her Department has made of the size of the UK's exascale supercomputing technology sector in comparison to that in (a) the United States, (b) Japan and (c) Europe.
Answered by Paul Scully
At present, the UK does not have exascale capability. Exascale systems are at an early stage of deployment globally. The US’ first exascale system, Frontier, was brought online earlier this year. As for Japan and the EU, they have not reached exascale capability yet. The first EU’s exascale system, Jupiter, is expected to be deployed in 2023.
In September 2021, DCMS took on responsibility for coordination of activity and policy development for large-scale computing (LSC).
The Future of Compute review, independently led by Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, will build on the 2021 report by the Government Office for Science (Large-scale computing: the case for greater UK coordination) which set out the building blocks to creating a world-class computing ecosystem. The Future of Compute review will produce recommendations on the UKs compute capability over the next decade and the interventions required to ensure that UK researchers and businesses can fully exploit world-class compute infrastructure to support science, innovation and growth.
The Future of Compute review will contain an overview of the international advanced compute landscape. Ahead of the review’s publication, the Top500 list provides an up-to-date assessment of international compute capabilities and a ranking of the most powerful systems globally.
The review will be published in due course.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the British Computer Society report The experiences of black women in the information technology industry, published in October 2022, what recent steps her Department has taken to encourage black women to pursue careers in the tech industry.
Answered by Paul Scully
We recognise that the Tech Sector, including the Information Technology industry, can only reach its true potential if it is fully representative of society. This Government is committed to this mission, which is why we have supported the Tech Talent Charter since 2016. They are leading the movement by gathering data and reporting on diversity statistics from 741 organisations across all sectors, fostering collaboration and innovation to create a more inclusive and diverse tech workforce. TTC’s annual diversity in tech report is a key resource that encourages businesses to hire diverse talent, as well as sharing the best D&I practices across the sector.
We recognise that digital skills are fundamental to ensuring everyone can make the most of a digital future. As the department that leads on digital skills, we are focusing on broadening and deepening the pool of talent. The Digital Skills Council convenes stakeholders from across the sector to deliver industry led action on driving the growth of the digital workforce, including widening the skills pipelines, and ensuring Tech roles are accessible for all. One of the council’s objectives is to promote mechanisms to provide increasingly diverse access to digital roles and digitally enabled roles.
The Office for AI has also set up the AI and Data Science Conversion Course programmes to provide a Masters degree in AI and Data Science. The first scholarships were announced in 2019, and earlier this year, the government announced a further 2,000 scholarships. These will support underrepresented groups from non-STEM backgrounds to develop new digital and AI skills, and secure employment in the UK’s cutting-edge sectors. To date, 57% of these scholarships have been awarded to those from an ethnic minority background, and 38% of these scholarships have been awarded to Black students. Emerging findings also indicate that the scholarships are driving increased diversity in the cohort on these conversion courses compared to traditional Masters’ provision in the sector. 76% of the scholarships were awarded to women, leading to a 32% increase of women on the courses, against comparable benchmarks.
DCMS also launched Cyber Explorers, which supports 11-14 year-olds, and looks to boost their understanding and interest in a cyber career. The programme has prioritised representation on the platform, including characters from a range of diverse backgrounds and careers. This has focused on amplifying reach in population areas with high ethnic minority densities and areas with multiple indices of deprivation. This is alongside our work to support the CyberFirst Girls Competition, which opened its latest intake last month.
With DCMS funding, Tech Nation developed its Libra growth programme in 2021.The programme offers targeted support to minority ethnic tech founders in their scaling journey. Tech Nation has also developed a publicly available Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit, which supports scaling companies in implementing diversity and inclusion strategies in order to make the tech sector as a whole more accessible for those from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the British Computer Society report The experiences of black women in the information technology industry, published in October 2022, what recent steps her Department has taken to encourage individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds to pursue careers in the tech industry.
Answered by Paul Scully
We recognise that the Tech Sector, including the Information Technology industry, can only reach its true potential if it is fully representative of society. This Government is committed to this mission, which is why we have supported the Tech Talent Charter since 2016. They are leading the movement by gathering data and reporting on diversity statistics from 741 organisations across all sectors, fostering collaboration and innovation to create a more inclusive and diverse tech workforce. TTC’s annual diversity in tech report is a key resource that encourages businesses to hire diverse talent, as well as sharing the best D&I practices across the sector.
We recognise that digital skills are fundamental to ensuring everyone can make the most of a digital future. As the department that leads on digital skills, we are focusing on broadening and deepening the pool of talent. The Digital Skills Council convenes stakeholders from across the sector to deliver industry led action on driving the growth of the digital workforce, including widening the skills pipelines, and ensuring Tech roles are accessible for all. One of the council’s objectives is to promote mechanisms to provide increasingly diverse access to digital roles and digitally enabled roles.
The Office for AI has also set up the AI and Data Science Conversion Course programmes to provide a Masters degree in AI and Data Science. The first scholarships were announced in 2019, and earlier this year, the government announced a further 2,000 scholarships. These will support underrepresented groups from non-STEM backgrounds to develop new digital and AI skills, and secure employment in the UK’s cutting-edge sectors. To date, 57% of these scholarships have been awarded to those from an ethnic minority background, and 38% of these scholarships have been awarded to Black students. Emerging findings also indicate that the scholarships are driving increased diversity in the cohort on these conversion courses compared to traditional Masters’ provision in the sector. 76% of the scholarships were awarded to women, leading to a 32% increase of women on the courses, against comparable benchmarks.
DCMS also launched Cyber Explorers, which supports 11-14 year-olds, and looks to boost their understanding and interest in a cyber career. The programme has prioritised representation on the platform, including characters from a range of diverse backgrounds and careers. This has focused on amplifying reach in population areas with high ethnic minority densities and areas with multiple indices of deprivation. This is alongside our work to support the CyberFirst Girls Competition, which opened its latest intake last month.
With DCMS funding, Tech Nation developed its Libra growth programme in 2021.The programme offers targeted support to minority ethnic tech founders in their scaling journey. Tech Nation has also developed a publicly available Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit, which supports scaling companies in implementing diversity and inclusion strategies in order to make the tech sector as a whole more accessible for those from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2021 to Question 140074 on Tech Nation: Equality, what progress Tech Nation has made on (a) capturing data on the ethnic background of applicants to its programmes and (b) developing a diversity data capture framework; and what recent assessment has been made of the level of diversity in the tech companies supported by Tech Nation's programmes.
Answered by Paul Scully
Tech Nation has been collecting diversity data of applicants to its programmes since September 2020, including on ethnic backgrounds. This is subject to a self-identification process by participants.
Tech Nation developed a diversity data capture framework, which has also been made available to the sector, as part of its Diversity and Inclusion toolkit.
In May 2022, DCMS assessed the level of diversity in the tech companies supported by Tech Nation’s programmes, as part of the Departments’ Public Sector Equality Duty. For this assessment, Tech Nation provided data on the age, ethnicity and gender of its beneficiaries. This data shows that, excluding Libra (a targeted growth programme for ethnic minority founders), 27.2% of founders within Tech Nation’s cohorts identify as non-white (11.8% as Asian, 3.5% as Black, 11.8% as other).
DCMS has recently commissioned Frontier Economics to undertake an independent evaluation of DCMS’ funding to Tech Nation for financial years 20/21- 22/23, which we intend to publish in the first half of 2023. This will include an assessment of the impact of Tech Nation’s activities on particular groups where possible.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether (a) recorded voice and (b) creative output is considered biometric data for the purposes of regulation.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
All organisations in the UK that process personal data, including biometric data, have to comply with the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).
The UK GDPR defines biometric data as ‘personal data resulting from specific technical processing relating to the physical, physiological or behavioural characteristics of a natural person, which allow or confirm the unique identification of that natural person, such as facial images or dactyloscopic data’. This includes voice recognition, alongside other techniques.
All biometric data is personal data, as it relates to an identified or identifiable individual. Biometric data is also special category data whenever you process it “for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person”. This means that biometric data will be Special Category Data in many cases.
If an organisation considers that it is processing biometric data, but not for the purposes of uniquely identifying a natural living person, then they should clearly document their rationale alongside a risk based analysis of the use. In any event, the data should be handled in line with the data protection principles.
The ICO has published guidance for organisations on the processing of special category and biometric data, which can be found here.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will make an assessment of the level of reliance on (a) charities and (b) crisis support organisations in Newcastle as a result of the increased cost of living.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises that many charities and crisis support organisations across the country are seeing increased demand, although we have not conducted a specific assessment for Newcastle.
We know that some of this demand is driven by households facing increasing costs, which is why government took action and introduced the Energy Price Guarantee for households and why, in England, an additional £421 million is being provided to extend the Household Support Fund from 01 October 2022 to 31 March 2023.
We are also providing support to all charities, public sector organisations and businesses with their energy costs this winter by offering an energy price guarantee for six months through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This scheme will benefit charities and community groups across the country, including those operating in Newcastle.
My Department will keep engaging constructively with the civil society sector up and down the country and across government to monitor the impact of levels of demand, and ensure DCMS is engaged on policy which impacts charities and crisis support services.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment the Government has made of the effect of the cost of living crisis on charities and community groups that support people with the cost of living in Newcastle.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
As households and communities face rising energy prices over the winter, charities are seeing higher demand for their services while contending with the same price increases themselves.
That is why the government announced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, supporting all charities, public sector organisations and businesses with their energy costs this winter by offering an energy price guarantee for six months. This scheme will benefit charities and community groups across the country, including those operating in Newcastle.
My Department will keep engaging constructively with the civil society sector up and down the country and across government to monitor the impact of rising costs, and ensure DCMS is engaged on policy which impacts charities and civil society.