Children ‘no match’ for Silicon Valley billions, peer says in online safety plea
22 January 2025, 10:44
‘A child whether five or 15 is no match for the billions of dollars spent hijacking their attention’, Baroness Kidron said
A child is “no match for the billions of dollars spent hijacking their attention”, a filmmaker has warned in a plea for strengthened child safety online.
Baroness Kidron, whose credits include Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, agreed to drop her proposed amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, on the condition that the Government considers future changes to bolster children’s safety online.
The crossbencher proposed several changes to the proposed law, including a new clause which would compel organisations to consider that children are “entitled to a higher standard of protection than adults”.
Lord Vallance of Balham, a technology minister, said the Government was “open to exploring a more targeted approach”.
Baroness Kidron told the Lords: “In the last few weeks, Meta has removed its moderators. The once-lauded Twitter has become flooded with disinformation and abuse as a result of Elon Musk’s determined deregulation and support of untruth.
“We’ve seen the dial move on elections in Romania’s presidential election via TikTok, a rise in scams and the horror of sexually explicit deepfakes that we will discuss in a later group.
“Public trust in both tech and politics is catastrophically low and while we may disagree on the extent to which adults deserve privacy and protection, there are few in this House or the other place who do not believe it is a duty of Government to protect children.”
She added: “The Government has a decision to make. It can choose to please the CEOs of Silicon Valley in the hope of the capitulation on regulatory standards will get us a data centre or two, or it can prioritise the best interests of UK children and agree to these amendments that put children’s needs first.”
Lord Russell of Liverpool, also an independent crossbencher, said: “What we are trying to do with this set of amendments is upfront. We are trying to say to the Government we want this to be as effective as it possibly could be now and we do not want to come back and rue the consequences of not a) being completely clear and b) putting very, very clear onus of responsibility on the regulators in two or three years’ time because another two or three years of children will have important parts of their childhood deteriorating quite rapidly with consequences that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.”
Lord Vallance said that “requiring all data controllers to identify whether any of the data they hold relates to children and applying a higher standard to it would place a disproportionate burden on small businesses and other organisations that currently have no way of differentiating age groups”.
The minister the Government is “open to exploring a more targeted approach”, putting the emphasis on technology companies.
Baroness Kidron agreed not call a vote but told peers: “A child, whether five or 15, is no match for the billions of dollars spent hijacking their attention, their self-esteem and their bodies, and we have to in these moments as a House choose David over Goliath.”
