argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): The Digital Economy Act 2017 introduced the 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 that is made available on a commercial basis Section 14(2) of the Act states: "The Secretary of State may make regulations specifying…circumstances in which material is or is not to be regarded as made available on a commercial basis." So, in a sense, this is a small part of the legislative jigsaw needed to implement age verification. It is the last piece. I therefore ask that the draft Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2018, and the two pieces of guidance published by the British Board of Film Classification on age-verification arrangements and on ancillary services providers be approved I should bring to the attention of the House the concerns of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which I thank for their work. I will address their concerns in a moment but, before coming to the specific points related to this debate, I remind the House why we are introducing this requirement In the offline world, there are strict rules to deter children from accessing adult content. A large amount of pornography is available on the internet in the UK, often for free, with little or no protections to ensure that those accessing the content are old enough to do so.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that, in 2015, Ofcom said that that was the pivotal time when we switched from people viewing the internet on desktop computers to more people viewing it on handheld devices such as smartphones. The potential for people to view such things inadvertently in public, which has been identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), has therefore increased dramatically, as has the potential for children to be exposed to it.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sorry that I am taking a long time to answer my right hon. Friend’s point, but it is an important one. I will finish with the last intervention before I take more interventions The Government are keeping a weather eye on the availability of pornography on social media platforms. I shall talk more about that, but I reassure my right hon. Friend that we will introduce further measures. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who is in the Chamber, has a duty to report back on the impact of the regulations 12 to 18 months after their commencement and he will look at just the issues my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has raised. I will make a little progress before taking further interventions. There is no doubt, going back to the work of the Women and Equalities Committee, that the large amount of pornography available on the internet in the UK, often for free and with no protections to ensure that those accessing it are old enough to do so, is leading to a change in the way that young people understand healthy relationships, sex and consent. I know that that is a major issue of concern to everybody across the House. A 2016 report commissioned by the Children’s Commissioner and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children made that absolutely clear. More than half of the children sampled had been exposed to online pornography by the age of 15, nearly half of the boys thought that the pornography they had seen was realistic, and just under half wished to emulate what they had seen The introduction of a requirement for age-verification controls is a necessary step in tackling those issues and it contributes towards our commitment to make the UK a safer place to be online, particularly for children and young people.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Neil John O'Brien (Conservative, Centre-right): As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I have been involved in our ongoing report on smartphones, social media and young people’s mental health. Absolutely central to that report is the whole issue of age verification for access not just to pornography but to gambling, violent material and things like that. Does the Minister share my strong view that many large social media companies—some of the world’s largest companies, with almost unbelievably sophisticated granular data on their users—have to be raising their game? In the run-up to the online harms White Paper, which goes beyond what we are talking about today, companies in the industry absolutely need to raise their game, because they are allowing their own terms of use to be violated, and they know that is happening but are doing nothing about it.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech dealing with this critical issue that any of us who are responsible for young people will feel very strongly about. Does she agree that there is a rapid evolution in the technology sector? She talked specifically about pornographic sites that charge for access. Will she say a bit more about how she would deal with those sites that offer slightly different business models—for example, the premium model, where it is free to go on to the site and it then captures people’s details and makes them pay a subscription fee later? I am sure that she has considered that as part of her response, so I would be grateful if she could update us on it.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Timothy Paul Loughton (Conservative, Centre-right): I chaired the UK Council for Child Internet Safety for two and half years. While I applaud the regulations that the Minister is bringing forward, this is scratching the surface. The problem is that these days very few young people pay to access hardcore pornography on the internet. Unless we have some form of verifiable, age-based permission such as the use of a credit card—even if that is not charged for—we are not going to prevent this from happening. Actually, the much bigger problem is on social media, with sexting and everything else that goes on. Social media companies, including ones that we have had in front of the Home Affairs Committee, are turning a blind eye to the hosting of exceedingly dangerous material that young people are accessing and normalising, and then they are transferring that to their relationships during impressionable years. We really have got to do so much better than this.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he has done while chairing that important body, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. I have already made clear in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, the Chair of the Select Committee, that we do recognise that these regulations are a first step. Although we have high expectations of what they can achieve, we are fully aware that they do not go as far as to be able to satisfy the vast majority of our concerns where social media platforms are concerned, where the majority of content is not pornographic I would like to reassure the House, however, that I do believe that these regulations will be more effective than my hon. Friend fears, because they will cover sites that make pornography available free of charge. As he rightly points out, the majority of young people access pornography without paying for the service. However, if they access it from a site that is predominantly pornographic and is offering a pornographic service on a commercial basis, then, whether it is free of charge or paid for, the regulations will capture both. I would like to reassure him that these regulations will bring into scope the sites about which he is concerned that currently provide these services free of charge My hon. Friend will also be reassured to know, when I go on to explain a little more about the actual process of age verification, that it is not simply a matter of being able to offer a credit card. The rigour of age verification provision will be stricter than that. That will also help to counter the growing trend of young people accessing pornography before they attain the age of 18.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that serious work is being undertaken as we speak, as we prepare the online harms White Paper. We are looking at encryption within the context of that White Paper. He will appreciate the difficulties of privacy versus the public need to reduce the exposure of young people to pornographic material. We are looking at this very seriously. We will be bringing forward the White Paper in the new year and will welcome his input on that We have set a threshold of 30% to ensure proportionality where material is made available free of charge. Thus there is an exemption for people making available pornographic content on a website where it makes up under one third of that content. This will ensure that websites that do not derive a significant proportion of their overall commercial benefit from pornography are not regarded in these regulations as commercial pornographic websites. Nevertheless, should a website or app be marketed as making available pornographic material, a person making such material available on that site will be considered to be making it available on a commercial basis even if it constitutes less than one third of the total. This is a proportionate way to introduce the new policy I am confident that these measures represent the most effective way to commence this important new policy, but our Department will of course keep it under review. Indeed, as I said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be reporting on the regulatory framework within 12 to 18 months of commencement of the regulations. In addition, as I just mentioned in response to the hon. Gentleman, the forthcoming online harms White Paper will provide us with another opportunity to review the wider context of this policy In conjunction, we have laid two pieces of British Board of Film Classification guidance—first, on age verification arrangements and, secondly, on ancillary service providers. The first piece of guidance sets out the criteria by which the BBFC will assess whether a person has met the requirements of section 14 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 to ensure that pornographic material is not normally accessible to those under 18. The criteria mandate four things: an effective control mechanism at the point of access to verify that a user is aged 18 or over; strict requirements on age verification data; a requirement to ensure that revisits to a site do not permit the bypassing of age verification controls; and the prevention of non-human operators—for example, bots—from exercising the age-verification regime.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to reassure my hon. Friend that I certainly think it has the experience, expertise and resources to undertake this role. It has more than a century of experience in the control of film content. It has additional resources and moneys with which it can hold to account age-verification providers and, most importantly, the websites that are providing the pornographic content In addition to the criteria that the BBFC will use to verify the effective control of age-verification arrangements, it has provided typical examples of features that it would regard as non-compliant in the arena of age verification The second piece of guidance provides a non-exhaustive list of ancillary service providers that the BBFC will consider. That list is not exhaustive, to ensure that the policy remains flexible to future developments. The BBFC has published draft versions of both pieces of guidance and has run a public consultation for four weeks on their content. The draft guidance laid before the House takes account of comments received from affected companies, age-verification providers and other interested parties I have been clear that age verification is not a silver bullet, and we know that what we are doing is difficult. Indeed, we are the first country in the world to introduce such a measure. I am aware of the concerns expressed by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments about the drafting of the Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2018. I have considered its concerns carefully, and we are grateful for its work, but we do not believe that the variation in the legislation between the terms "met" and "applied" will be difficult for a court to interpret The Committee expressed concerns about the content threshold because it anticipates difficulty with the application and interpretation of the regulation. As I have said, the regulation will not apply in a case where it is reasonable for the age-verification regulator to assume that pornographic material makes up less than one third of the content of such a site. As stated in the BBFC guidance, the BBFC will seek to engage and work with a person or company who may be in contravention of the requirement in advance of commencing enforcement action I am aware that the Committee has also drawn the special attention of both Houses to these draft pieces of guidance because, in its view, they fail to contain the guidance required by section 25(1) of the 2017 Act and contain material that should not have been included. Section 3, paragraph 5, of the age-verification guidance sets out the criteria that the regulator will treat as complying with age verification. The guidance goes on in paragraph 6 to give examples of features that, in isolation, do not comply with the age-verification requirements. That approach ensures fairness and is product-neutral. Rather than recommending a particular solution, the guidance sets out principles that will encourage further innovation.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): Should I be concerned by reports that a company called AgeID, which operates the ID verification system for Pornhub and YouPorn, is considering the idea of "porn passes", which could be bought from a newsagent and would allow people to access porn online anonymously, so that they do not have the embarrassment of their credit cards being recorded against such a site?
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Margot Cathleen James (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, which I will take on board, but I will just deal with the point raised by my hon. Friend. The measures that will be acceptable to the BBFC will be of greater rigour than the examples he gave. I hope that I will be able to satisfy his concerns, but I may write to him, rather than dwell at length on the important issue he raises I now turn to the guidance on ancillary service providers. Paragraph 3 of section 3 provides a non-exhaustive list of classes of providers that the age-verification regulator may consider as within scope. However, to ensure that this policy remains flexible for the benefit of future developments, it is necessary that this is a non-exhaustive list. Where new classes of ancillary services appear in the future, the BBFC’s guidance explains the process by which these services will be informed The guidance includes additional material, as this is a new policy and the regulator considered that it was important for its stakeholders that the guidance set out the wider context in which the age-verification regulator will carry out regulation. This includes valuable guidance on matters such as the BBFC’s approach, powers and material on data protection We are aware of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s special interest report. The Committee raised similar concerns to the JCSI—for example, on the content threshold—and the responses to the SLSC’s concerns on these points are the same as the responses we have given to the JCSI reports. However, the SLSC also suggested that the House may want to ask what action the Government will take to tackle pornographic material available on a non-commercial basis. We have already debated these issues during my remarks I appreciate that pornography is of course made available by means not covered by the regulations. We have already covered those issues, but they were also the subject of extensive discussion during the passage of the Digital Economy Bill. In particular, concern has been expressed about social media platforms. As I have said in response to hon. Members’ interventions, we expect those platforms to enforce their own terms and conditions and to protect children from harmful content. Indeed, the Government have been clear that online platforms must do more to protect users from such harmful content.
Digital Economy — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Technology
Michael Jon Wood (Conservative, Centre-right): How do the Government intend to ensure that these regulations can keep up with technological advancements and developments within these markets so that the legislation and regulations this place passes are not obsolete by the time they come into force?
Kayden Dunn — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) for securing this debate. This is a genuinely horrifying case, and I hope I will be able slightly to express our debt of gratitude to her and to Kayden Dunn’s family for bringing this case to the House It begins, of course, as a terrible personal story of a little boy. Anybody looking at the photographs or hearing the hon. Lady talk about Kayden on a trampoline or in his school play will feel the horror of what happened, which is something that has ramifications for all our lives, whether or not we are parents. I am the father of a four-year-old boy and an 18-month-old boy, and I think of such incidents every time I go to the road. All of us, in different ways, will reflect on this, and I hope that all of us will reflect on the justice system and on driving At the heart of this is the crime committed by a young man at the wheel of a car, which led to something so horrifying as the loss of a young life. It raises for us a couple of issues that I hope to touch on before I conclude. First, the Ministry of Justice must take some practical steps to learn from Kayden Dunn’s case. The hon. Lady specifically raised the case of the probation service and what we can do on restorative justice. Restorative justice is hugely important, and it can really help the business of healing and it can really help a family, like Kayden’s family, come to terms with somebody who has committed such a crime. There have been delays in this case and, as we have explained to Kayden’s mother, part of it is due to her personal family circumstances. I believe a meeting has now taken place—on 16 November—and we will now reach out to her again to see whether there is more we can do to facilitate this The broader question of law, moving from the probation service to sentencing, is very important. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, there is the broader issue of how we deal with people who cause death by their actions in a motor car. We all need to remember the fundamental fact that a motor car is, in effect, a lethal weapon: it is tonnes of metal, with a powerful engine, travelling at a very great speed The awful truth is that recent statistics suggest that 25% of young men aged between 17 and 21 have a car crash. That is 25% of young men aged between 17 and 21 at the wheel of this lethal weapon driving carelessly or dangerously.
Kayden Dunn — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Margaret Ann Throup (Conservative, Centre-right): My heart goes out to Kayden’s family. Sadly, what we have heard tonight is not an isolated incident. The Minister talks about a car being a lethal weapon, and anybody else killing somebody with a lethal weapon would be charged with murder. Will there be any steps to change the law to make the lethal weapon of a car being driven dangerously murder?
Kayden Dunn — House of Commons, 2018-12-17
Topic: Transportation
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): That is probably the central question in this whole debate. The answer, of course, is that, in terms of the loss of life, it is like murder. The act has killed someone, and that life can never be given back. The difference between murder and this, of course, is in the intention of the individual, which is a very difficult thing to talk about. English law traditionally distinguishes between somebody intentionally trying to kill someone, and somebody whose acts, through recklessness in this case, have resulted in a death. One reason why we are moving to increase the penalty for causing death by dangerous driving to a life sentence is that we believe strongly that this is, if not quite murder, indistinguishable in effect from manslaughter There are two types of manslaughter—illegal act manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter. We could argue that somebody at the wheel of a car killing somebody else either by speeding or drink-driving, which would be an unlawful act, or simply by driving dangerously, is breaching their duty of care to other road users. Their recklessness lies in the fact that they ought to be aware, or any reasonable person would be aware, that their actions had a high likelihood of resulting in death There are also things we need to do on the broader issue of road safety that do not relate directly to Kayden Dunn’s case but which are important for future cases. Some good campaigns have been run in this House drawing attention to how vulnerable cyclists and pedestrians can be. Tragically, Kayden is one of almost 440 pedestrians killed this year in the UK by motor cars.
Public Health Grants — House of Commons, 2016-02-09
Topic: Government Operations
John Luther Mercer (Conservative, Centre-right): In 2014-15, my city of Plymouth received £47 per head. Portsmouth, which is statistically healthier, received £77 and Kensington and Chelsea got £136. I absolutely understand that this is a legacy issue with the funding formula, and the Government are committed to dealing with it, but I cannot stress enough how important it is that we speed this up. How does the Department plan to achieve this? The current situation is grossly unfair to my constituents.
Care Outside Hospitals — House of Commons, 2016-02-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you for calling me, Mr. Speaker. I must mention the team ably led by the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) and of course the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) In areas with a high proportion of older residents, home aids and adaptations can help people live longer in their homes, which benefits them and can also help to ease pressure on the NHS and social care services. What steps are the Government taking to boost such support?