Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the capacity of technology firms to provide adequate moderation processes for (a) identifying and (b) tackling online child abuse during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government is working closely with technology companies, NGOs, law enforcement and other Governments to understand the impact of COVID on technology companies’ ability to identify and combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse, and any steps that can be taken to address this in order to protect children and stop offenders.

From initial conversations, this issue remains a priority for companies and they continue to identify child sexual abuse content albeit with reduced capacity.