Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what actions they have taken, prior to the announcement on 27 January that they would consider banning websites promoting self-harm and suicide, to protect young people from harmful online content.

Government is taking a range of measures to protect children and young people from harmful online content.

Through the Digital Economy Act 2017, the government is introducing a requirement for commercial providers of online pornography to have robust age verification controls in place to prevent children and young people under 18 from accessing pornographic material.

In addition we have worked with Internet Service Providers to introduce a rigorous and comprehensive system of family-friendly content filtering, through which parents can help protect their children from viewing harmful content over home broadband networks.

Through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety we have produced a practical guide for providers of social media and interactive services, in which we set out best practices for preventing children from encountering harmful content.

Furthermore, the Data Protection Act 2018 introduced a new requirement for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to produce a statutory code of practice on age-appropriate design. This code will ensure that websites and applications are designed in a way that makes clear what data is being collected on children, how this data is being used, and how both children and parents can stay in control of this data.

Nevertheless there is still more to do, which is why we will shortly be publishing an Online Harms White Paper, which will set out a range of legislative and non-legislative measures detailing how the Government will tackle the full range of online harms and set clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe.