The Education Secretary and Culture
Secretary have today written to the Children’s Commissioner Dame
Rachel de Souza asking her to work with them on driving work to
protect children on the internet, particularly against access to
pornography online.
It follows publication of last week’s Online Safety Bill and
comes as data published by the NSPCC today reveals more than 350
calls have been made to the Report Abuse in Education helpline
set up by the Department for Education last month, launched
alongside a review by Ofsted of sexual abuse in schools.
He has tweeted and the full
letter is also attached to this email – it includes the following
detail:
We are clear that tech companies must not wait for regulation
to protect children from harmful content.
We agreed we would work with you to get your input on whether
there are actions we can take now to further protect children
before the Online Safety Bill comes into effect... We would also
welcome your views on how to work with schools, parents and
charities to support them around building strong social norms
against underage access to pornography, around children using the
internet safely and educating those groups on the impact that
some internet content can have on healthy sex and
relationships.
We would like to invite you to a roundtable with tech
companies, civil society, law enforcement and schools to discuss
what more can be done ahead of legislation.
