Memorandum by the Children's Charities'
Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS)
In relation to levels of public confidence in
the internet (page1, Introduction), there is no doubt at all that,
at least as far as children's and young people's use of it are
concerned, there is a continuing, high level of anxiety and lack
of trust, a fact which is constantly being evidenced in research.
It is also a fact which was implicitly, if not explicitly, recognised
by the Prime Minister when he commissioned Dr Tanya Byron to report
on these very matters. Her report is expected on or by the 31st
of this month. I might add that, right now, there is more big
and small "p" political activity taking place around
aspects of internet policy than has ever been the case hitherto
within the United Kingdom. This hardly betokens a sense that public
policy is settled or that there is a widespread consensus about
it.
The fact that there is continued, strong growth
in internet usage and in trading on the internet does not necessarily
disprove the notion that there is a high level of public disquiet
about it. It could be more a case of force majeure.
There are some things you can no longer do,
in a practical sense, unless you use the internet. If you want
the cheaper holidays or the tickets for your favourite band you
really must go online, but that does not necessarily mean you
entirely trust the online environment or that you feel completely
comfortable about using it.
Hardly a month goes by without another report
appearing in the press of some company or other, or some public
agency or other, losing or misplacing data, or of credit card
details being wrongfully exposed online through a security breach
on a web server. It does not follow that simply because people
nonetheless carry on using the internet to buy and sell things
or to submit forms to their local Council or to the Government,
that they do not care about these things or they believe they
are merely isolated incidents which are being satisfactorily dealt
with. More likely, it probably just means they feel they have
no real choice but to carry on and bear the risk.
Moving on, again on page 1, the Government refers
to the question of the regulatory burden. I am sure everyone agrees
that "imposing additional burdens on business" is not
an end in itself, much less is it a desirable end in itself, but
it cannot be the starting point of policy discussions. The object,
surely, must be to take a view about what the policy objective
is or ought to be and then to devise the best possible means of
delivering it, whilst accepting there should never be any gratuitous
or unnecessary administrative or other burdens placed on anyone,
be they a business or any other kind of enterprise.
On page 2, paragraph 1, the Government appears
to rule out the possibility of changing the way information is
collected on how crimes are committed to reflect whether or not
computers or the internet played a major part in their commission.
This is highly regrettable and it is hoped this point can be reconsidered.
We agree that the decision about whether or
not to prosecute someone, in general, ought not to be affected
by any consideration of the tools used to commit the offence.
However, in relation to improving our ability to devise improved
crime fighting strategies eg to protect children online, it must
be in everyone's interests to be able to see how the new technologies
are shaping criminal behaviour. At the moment, absent that data
being collected on a systematic basis, everyone has to rely on
one off studies or else we are thrown back on anecdotal evidence.
That cannot be right.
On page 5, the Government refers to the issue
of "mere conduit" status. Clearly the Government is
right to say it cannot act selectively on European legislation,
but would they support, or themselves bring forward a proposal
to change the current provisions on mere conduit status? We hope
so, both for the reasons given by the Select Committee but also
because we know, because ISPs and other online providers have
told us this repeatedly, the current Directive introduces a positive
incentive to do nothing. It is true that some ISPs and other online
providers choose to act, despite the legal risk they thereby take
on, but it is also undeniably true that others choose not to act
precisely in order to avoid attracting any potential or additional
liability. In other words the Directive threatens to punish the
responsible company that wants to engage proactively to do the
right thing, and it rewards the provider who is happy just to
sit back and wait to be told there is a problem. Again, that cannot
be right.
17 March 2008
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