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.

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.