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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are under a statutory obligation to update the Guidance from the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to the Age-Verification Regulator for Online Pornography, published in January 2018 and presented to Parliament pursuant to section 27 of the Digital Economy Act 2017; and if so, how often they are obliged to update it.

In October 2019, His Majesty’s Government announced its decision to use the Online Safety Bill to protect children from pornography. The provisions in this Bill will provide greater protection to children than Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act. It will cover a wider range of services, including social media companies and search services, which were not in scope of the Digital Economy Act, and which play a significant role in enabling children to access harmful content online.

There is no statutory obligation to update the guidance mentioned in section 27 of the Digital Economy Act. As HM Government intends to repeal Part 3 of that Act through the Online Safety Bill, amending this guidance would not serve any purpose as it will not be used. Instead, Ofcom, as the independent regulator for the online safety regime, will set out the steps companies can take to protect children from harmful content such as pornography in codes of practice. Ofcom will also publish guidance for companies to meet the duty to protect children from published pornography in Part 5 of the Bill. The Secretary of State will also have a general power to issue guidance to Ofcom about the exercise of its functions under the Bill.

Ofcom will have a range of powers to assess whether companies are fulfilling their duties, and will be empowered to enforce the new regulatory regime. The British Board of Film Classification’s designation as the age verification regulator under the Digital Economy Act was revoked following the October 2019 announcement.