The Prime Minister has announced a series of measures aimed at strengthening the protection of children online, after expressing concern that the law must keep pace with technological developments.

Much of the coverage of the Prime Minister’s speech focussed on his comments regarding the forthcoming consultation on children’s wellbeing online. As we previously commented upon here, the Government recently announced that it would consult on a range of measures to “protect young people’s wellbeing and ensure safer online experiences”, including:

• Raising the digital age of consent;
• Exploring a minimum age for children to access social media;
• Implementing ‘phone curfews’ to avoid excessive use;
• Removing or limiting potentially addictive design features such as so-called ‘infinite scrolling’;
• Exploring ways to improve the accuracy of age assurance; and
• Introducing age limits or restrictions on the use of VPNs by children.

To ensure that any recommendations arising from the consultation can be implemented quickly, the Prime Minister confirmed that the Government will table new powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to “enable the Government to act at speed to introduce the targeted actions”, adding that “these powers will mean we can act fast on [the consultation’s] findings within months, rather than waiting years for new primary legislation every time technology evolves”.

The Prime Minister also confirmed that the Government will table an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to ensure that chatbots not currently regulated under the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA) will be brought within its scope and be subject to requirements to protect their users from illegal content. We have recently discussed (here) how there has been increasing concern within the Government about the extent to which chatbots are caught by the provisions of the OSA, and amendments have already been tabled in the House of Lords to bring them within Ofcom’s remit.

Finally, the Prime Minister announced that the Government also plans to table an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to “give effect to the measures around the preservation of child social media data”.

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