Digital Economy Bill (Second sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Claire Perry]

Q Am I right in thinking that, for sites that are providing illegally copyrighted material, there is currently a take-down and blocking regime that does operate in the UK, regardless of their jurisdiction?

David Austin: Yes; ISPs do block website content that is pirated. There was research published earlier this year in the US that found that it drove traffic to pirated websites down by about 90%. Another tool that has been used in relation to IP protection is de-indexing, whereby a search engine removes the infringing website from any search results. We also see that as a potential way forward.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Q First, can I verify that you both support adding in the power to require ISPs to block non-compliant sites?

David Austin: Yes.

Alan Wardle: Yes, we support that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Good. That was quick. I just wanted to make sure that was there. What are your comments on widening the scope, so that age verification could be enforced for matters other than pornography, such as violent films or other content that we would not allow in the offline world? I am talking about things such as pro-anorexia websites. We know that this is possible to do in certain formats, because it is done for other things, such as copyright infringement. What are your views on widening the scope and the sanctions applying to that?

Alan Wardle: We would support that. We think the Bill is a really great step forward, although some things, such as enforcement, need to be strengthened. We think this is an opportunity to see how you can give children parity of protection in the online and the offline worlds.

It is very good, from our perspective, that the BBFC is doing this, because they have got that expertise. Pornography is not the only form of harm that children see online. We know from our research at the NSPCC that there are things like graphic violence. You mentioned some of the pro-anorexia and pro-suicide sites, and they are the kind of things that ought to be dealt with. We are supporting developing a code of practice with industry to work out what those harms are—and that is very much a staged approach.

We take it for granted that when, for instance, a child goes to a youth group or something like that, we make sure there are protections there, and that the staff are CRB checked. Somehow it seems that for children going on to the internet it is a bit like the wild west. There are very few protections. Some of the content really is upsetting and distressing to children. This is not about adults being blocked from seeing adult content. That is absolutely fine; we have no problem with that at all. But it is about protecting children from seeing content that is inappropriate for them. We would certainly support that widening, but obviously doing it in a staged way so that the regulator does not take on too much at once. We would certainly support that.

David Austin: I would echo what Alan says. We see this Bill as a significant step forward in terms of child protection. We absolutely agree with the principle of protecting children from a wider range of content—indeed, that is what we do in other areas: for example, with the mobile network operators and their adult filters. Like Alan, I think we see it in terms of more of a staged approach. The BBFC taking on this role is a significant new area of work—quite a challenge to take on board. I think there is a potential risk of overloading the Bill if we try to put too much on it, so I would very much support the NSPCC’s phased approach.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Is there anything further that you think needs to be added to the Bill to make the sanctions regime work? I am also thinking—at the risk of going against what you just said, Mr Austin—about whether or not we should be considering sites that are not designed for commercial purposes but where pornography or other harmful material is available on a non-commercial basis; or things not designed for porn at all, such as Twitter timelines or Tumblr and other social media, where the main purpose may not be pornography or other harmful material, but it is available. Do you think the Bill has enough sanctions in it to cope with all of that, or should that be added? Is there anything else you would like to add?

David Austin: There were a few questions. I will try to answer them all, but if I miss any of them please come back to me. In terms of sanctions, I have talked about ISP blocking and de-indexing. We think those could be potentially effective steps. In terms of commercial pornography, we have been working on devising a test of what that is. The Bill states explicitly that the pornography could be free and still provided on a commercial basis. I do not think it is narrowing the scope of the regulation an awful lot by specifying commercial pornography. If there are adverts, if the owner is a corporate entity, if there are other aspects—if the site is exploiting data, for example: there are all sorts of indications that a site is operating on a commercial basis. So I do not see that as a real problem.

In relation to Twitter, which you mentioned, what the Bill says the regulator should do is define what it sees as ancillary service providers. Those are organisations whose work facilitates and enables the pornography to be distributed. There is certainly a case to argue that social media such as Twitter are ancillary service providers. There are Twitter account holders who provide pornography on Twitter so I think you could definitely argue that.

I would argue that Twitter is an ancillary service provider, as are search engines and ISPs. One of the things that we plan to do in the next weeks and months would be to engage with everyone that we think is an ancillary service provider, and see what we can achieve together, to try and achieve the maximum protection we can through the notification regime that we are taking on as part 3 of the Bill.

[The Chair]

Just before we move on, shall we see if Mr Wardle also wants to contribute to things that should be in the Bill?

Alan Wardle: On that point, I think it is important for us that there is clarification—and I would agree with David about this—in terms of ensuring that sites that may for instance be commercial but that are not profiting from pornography are covered. Again, Twitter is an example. We know that there are porn stars with Twitter accounts who have lots of people following them and lots of content, so it is important that that is covered.

It is important that the legislation is future-proofed. We are seeing at the NSPCC through Childline that sexual content or pornography are increasingly live-streamed through social media sites, and there is self-generated content, too. It is important that that is covered, as well as the traditional—what you might call commercial—porn. We know from our research at the NSPCC that children often stumble across pornography, or it is sent to them. We think that streamed feeds for over-18s and under-18s should be possible so that sort of content is not available to children. It can still be there for adults, but not for children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

Q We talked earlier about the bulk transfer and bulk sharing of data, and an earlier witness talked about providing data access, rather than data sharing. Should the Government not be pursuing trials on that basis, rather than these enormous powers without any kind of assurances to the public or parliamentarians about how they will be using them?

Renate Samson: It was very specific at the end of the open policy making process that, for example—put the bulk to one side for a moment—but regarding the fraud and debt aspect of the Bill, it had been agreed that three-year pilot projects would take place with subsequent review and scrutiny potentially by the OPM or by another group. They are in the Bill as a piece of legislation with the Minister deciding whether or not it is okay and potentially asking other groups, which are not defined. That is half an answer to half your question. Pilots are an excellent idea if they are pilots, not immediate legislation.

With regards to the bulk powers in the Bill, civil registration documents were a late addition. We are still not clear as to their purpose. The purpose given in the consultation to the OPM process, but also in the background documents relating to the Bill, is a whole mix of different reasons, none of which, I would argue, are clear and compelling or, indeed, necessary and proportionate. But again, as you have heard a lot today, without detail, how can we properly answer your question?

Jim Killock: I have a quick observation on this. We currently have a data protection framework. The European Union is revising its data protection laws; they are somewhat tougher, which is quite a good thing, but we do not know what the future of data protection legislation is in the UK. It might be the same or it might be entirely different in a few years’ time.

That is a very good reason for ensuring that privacy safeguards are quite specific and quite high in some of these sensitive areas, because we do not know whether the more general rules can be relied on and whether they are going to be the same. That is not to say that we do not need higher safeguards in any case here, because you are not dealing with a consent regime. People have to use Government and Government have to look at the data, so it is not a mutual agreement between people; you have to have higher safeguards around that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q My questions are directed at Mr Killock and relate to paragraphs 37 and 38 of your submission, “Definition of pornographic material”. We heard earlier that both the NSPCC and the British Board of Film Classification support a provision to require ISPs to block websites that are non-compliant. There was also discussion of widening the scope to apply the restrictions to other harmful material that we would not allow children access to in the offline world. Here, you seem to be questioning the value of that:

“This extension of the definition…also raises questions as to why violent—but not sexual—materials rated as 18 should then be accessible online.”

I also question this consistency but the solution, to me, seems to be that we should include other material, such as violent material and pro-anorexic websites, as we talked about earlier. Will you tell us a bit more about what your objection is to creating a framework to keep children as safe online as they are offline?

Jim Killock: We have no objection; it is a laudable aim and something we should all be trying to do. The question is, what is effective and what will work and not impinge on people’s general rights? As soon as you look a little beyond pornography, you are talking about much more clear speech issues.

There will be a need to look at any given website and make a judgment about whether it should or should not be legally accessed by various people. That starts needing things like legal processes to be valid. Some of the things you are talking about are things that might not be viewed by anybody, potentially. The problem with all these systems is that they just do not work like that. They are working on bulk numbers of websites, potentially tens of thousands, all automatically identified, as a general rule, when people are trying to restrict this information. That poses a lot of problems.

I also query what is the measure of success here. Because I feel, I suspect, that the number of teenagers accessing pornography will probably not be greatly affected by these measures. There is more of an argument that small numbers of children who are, perhaps, under 12 may be less likely to stumble on pornographic material, but I doubt that the number of teenage boys, for instance, accessing pornographic material will be materially changed. If that is the case, what is the measure of success here? What harm is really being reduced? I just feel that, probably, these are rather expensive and difficult policies which are likely to have impacts on adults. People are saying it is not likely to affect them, but I rather suspect it might, and for what gain?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q You have mentioned your feelings and your suspicions but, actually, the British Board of Film Classification already has a system for identifying for instance pro-anorexic, pro-suicide and violent websites. It already has a system for use on mobile networks.

Jim Killock: No, it does not.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Yes, it does. They sat right here this afternoon.

Jim Killock: No it does not. The mobile providers have a system that the BBFC—

Q Thangam Debbonaire: So a system exists?

Jim Killock: They have a system, which is not wildly accurate that people choose to use. To the extent that they are choosing to use it, there is some legitimacy around that. People choose to have websites blocked and they understand that a certain number of them may be incorrectly blocked, that is OK.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Are you saying that that sort of system does not exist, because we were told that it did earlier?

Jim Killock: This is what they are currently doing: they are blocking websites, which are sometimes the right websites, sometimes not; sometimes the right websites are not blocked. It is essentially automated decision making that comes with the problem that you can only really do this by things like keyword search. There are not enough humans available at the right price to do the review, so all kinds of things get blocked for essentially no real reason. For instance, we have had a widget manufacturer—

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Forgive me for interrupting Mr Killock, but there is a good reason. You asked about successful outcomes—and if you are going to ask a question, I am going to answer it—the successful outcome is that children are protected in the online world in the same way as they are protected in the offline world. I have to reiterate this to you: I do not understand why you think it is a risk worth taking that some adults may or may not have their own personal preferences infringed, balanced against the harm which we know is done to children. On teenage boys, just saying that because teenage boys may or may not continue to watch pornography there is no point, that seems to be a very sad conclusion to come to.

Jim Killock: The point is that you can help children to be protected, the questions is, what is the best way? For instance, I agree with the NSPCC’s calls for the compulsory education of children. Of course that should be happening and it is not. Similarly, Claire Perry’s initiative to have filters available has its merits. Where I have a problem is where adults are forced into that situation, where they are having websites blocked and where there is little redress around that. I caution you around large-scale blocking of websites because we know from our own evidence that a very large number of websites get blocked incorrectly and it has impacts on those people too. The question is, what is effective? I am not sure that age verification will be effective in its own terms in protecting children.

[Claire Perry]

Mr Killock, it is nice to hear you finally supporting the initiative. Indeed, all of the shroud waving about false blocking was brought out with vigour many times over the past five years—

Jim Killock: We stand by that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

Q Claire Perry brought up the poor standards in the private sector earlier. Presumably you agree that the Bill misses an opportunity to deal with consent for the private sector’s use of data as well.

Sarah Gold: It does, because I think the Government should set best standards on this. There is a real opportunity to do that, and I cannot see that on the face of the Bill.

Chris Taggart: I broadly agree. There was a comment in one of the submissions that despite this being a Digital Economy Bill, it felt like it was from almost 10 years ago. We have the ability to treat data in a much more granular way—dealing with permissions, rights and so on; having things selectively anonymised; having things almost time-boxed, and so on. It struck me that it felt like the Bill was using the broad brush of how we used to exchange data 10 years ago. That seemed like a missed opportunity, particularly given that what we are talking about here is Government to Government. While it is very difficult for the private sector—or even between the Government and the private sector—to come up with some of those solutions, when you are talking essentially about one organisation, particularly one where there is the ability to legislate that everything should happen in the right way, it seems to be a missed opportunity.

I was asked a couple of years ago to be on the Tax Transparency Sector Board, which talked about opening up some of the tax data. Of course, pretty much no data were actually opened up, but some of the discussions were interesting. For example, the Bill talks a lot about individuals, which is absolutely right—I believe that we have innate human rights—but from a tax point of view, individuals and companies are exactly the same thing. There is no difference. HMRC was saying, “Hey, look, whatever we think and whatever we would like to do, we have no ability to treat individuals and companies as the same.” The idea of allowing companies to tick a box and say, “Yes, we’d like our tax to be reported and to be open about it,” or saying, “These offenders will be treated differently if they are corporate offenders,” for example—many countries do report tax offences by companies—was not even possible because of the underlying legislation. There is a sense that that sort of attitude slightly pervades some of this. Again, I am extremely in favour of the Government being more effective and efficient and using information sharing for that, but I would like the Bill to be as good as it possibly can be.

Finally, there are little things—I used to be a journalist but now I am a full-time geek—such as what is being reported? What things have been shared? How are those organisations being identified? The Government do not even have a coherent way of identifying Government Departments or non-departmental public bodies. Those sorts of things. There is a lot more that could be done to make this a genuinely effective Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Mr Taggart, you mentioned something about its feeling like it is 10 years out of date. I want to bring us bang up to date by chucking in a Brexit question. Is there anything that the three of you could very quickly add to the discussion about what might need to be in the Bill given that we are now in Brexit? Brexit has implications for the digital economy, about which I am sure you know more than me.

Chris Taggart: I will try to be brief. One is to do with policy aspects of what happens. I believe you are hearing from the Information Commissioner later. What happens to data protection in a post-EU UK? From our perspective, the UK has generally taken a slightly different perspective on data protection from the information commissioners in some other countries and is generally taking things like public interest into account and treating paid-for and free information the same, which we welcome. We have some concerns about the general data protection regulations because of that sort of stuff and some of the stuff that is coming from the EU. There are some potential benefits, but there are also some downsides about whether people’s rights will be defended. I think the digital economy becomes much, much more important, and my position here is as an advocate of open data and the potential for open data in driving a thriving digital economy. As a digital entrepreneur, I think we are missing some significant opportunities for that. If you were to sit down today and do a digital economy Bill with the knowledge that in a couple of years we perhaps would not be part of the EU, I think we would be doing something quite different.

Paul Nowak: May I pick up the point about post-Brexit? I think there is growing political consensus that one of the implications of the decision on 23 June is that we need to think seriously about how we invest in our national infrastructure. For the TUC that goes beyond Heathrow, Hinkley, High Speed Rail. It talks to issues around, for example, high-speed broadband. It is about thinking about how this Bill would interface with, for example, announcements that might come in the autumn statement about investment in high-speed broadband. I note that the Chair of the Committee talked about the interface between rail and high-speed broadband, which is something that should be borne in mind. Again, valid points were made on Second Reading about requirements for developers to incorporate high-speed broadband into new housing developments, which is absolutely essential. I reiterate the point I made earlier about seeing this in the context of the wider approach to industrial strategy and how the digital economy can support other parts of the economy that are going to be even more important as we move forward post-Brexit.

Sarah Gold: For me, particularly looking at privacy, security and personal data, it is about the age of some of the language used in the Bill. Even talking about data sharing feels to me like the wrong language. We should be talking about data access. Data sharing suggests duplication of databases, with data being slopped around different Departments, whereas data access suggests accessing minimum data via APIs or by using the canonical Government registers, which is an excellent project that is not mentioned in the Bill but should be.

[Nigel Huddleston]

Q There is a lot in this Bill, everything from BBC regulation to child protection, the universal service obligation and making switching easier. Can each of you say what are the top two or three positive features of the Bill that you believe will be of benefit to your members, clients or, indeed, the general public?

Chris Taggart: Yes. First of all, I agree that what I would like to see is that the Government—

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

Q One of the biggest contributing factors for people moving house is having access to a decent broadband signal. Have you done any statistical or economic modelling of population densities and movement away from cities to rural areas? Is that a piece of work that you would be prepared to do to find out the economic benefits to rural areas as part of the USO?

Professor Sir Charles Bean: That is not really my territory.

Hetan Shah: Ditto. I am here to talk about the stats and research clauses. I do not know about the other bits, I am afraid.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q You have both talked about other European countries and Canada. Forgive me for not knowing whether this is the correct term, but are we talking here about big data? Is that the term I hear bandied about? Either way, could you tell me a bit more about the benefits and outcomes in terms of policy information? Give us a bit more information about what these other countries are doing better and how their politicians are better equipped as a result.

Professor Sir Charles Bean: I think most people use the term “administrative data” to refer to large information held within the public sector that accrues as a by-product of whatever the public authority is doing. Tax information is a classic example, and it is something that is obviously potentially of use to the Office for National Statistics in constructing economic statistics. Big data is a wider concept that embraces the vast range of information that is generated by various sorts of private sector organisations, which includes the scanner data that Hetan mentioned. It is the sort of information that is generated by the likes of Google and phone companies. Big data is much broader.

There is a question about the extent to which you can use big data in the construction of official statistics. I think there are two obvious areas that you might want to exploit. One is scanner data for constructive price indices, which Hetan has already mentioned. The other area where I could see private sector big data being of considerable use is on payment information—information from payments processors and payments providers.

Of course, there is a vast amount of other information that is generated by the private sector. Some of that information might be useful for shedding light on new puzzles or new phenomena in the economy. One might want to be a little bit wary about relying on them to build the regular official statistics because you cannot be sure they are always going to be there, whereas you will probably have a reasonable presumption that the payments information and scanner data will continue to be available, and the Office for National Statistics could therefore use them on a regular basis.

Hetan Shah: I can give a couple of examples or case studies. One is pensions. In this country we have made quite a lot of changes in recent years around pensions policy, but it is very hard to track the impact of that. The Bill will allow for the ONS to bring together the benefits and pensions data, which are held by the DWP, the HMRC data, and also to go out to companies or to either regulatory bodies or federated bodies and get their data and bring those together so that we can see what auto-enrolment has actually meant, in terms of the amount people are putting into their pensions, and you can actually start tracking policy.

Another example is international student migrants, which is clearly a hot topic at the moment. At the moment there are Home Office data in one place, the Higher Education Statistics Agency holding useful data in another place and there are labour market data held in a third place. You could bring all those things together to actually track the impact and the numbers and so on, which at the moment we just do not have a good handle on. Those are the sorts of things that are possible if you give your statistical office access to the aggregate data from other Departments and also some access to private sector data.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Is that the sort of data other countries are using in that way?

Hetan Shah: Yes, that is right. Other countries have different set-ups, as it were, but these are the sorts of puzzles they can solve because they can bring those data together in different ways.

[Nigel Huddleston]

Q Mr Shah, you have partly answered my question, so I will turn to Professor Sir Charles Bean first. What kind of Government data would you personally like to get access to; what would you do with it; and how would the public benefit from your having it?

Professor Sir Charles Bean: You do not mean me personally? Presumably you mean the Office for National Statistics and the UK Statistics Authority?