Children are being treated as ‘guinea pigs’ by tech firms, warns the ISPCC
CHILDREN are being used as ‘guinea pigs’ by tech companies trying to sell new apps, the ISPCC has warned policymakers.
In a trenchant call for a powerful new social media regulator, the ISPCC says the government must act now to protect our most vulnerable citizens.
The charity added: ‘Leaving it up to individual companies to decide how, to what extent and when they will prioritise children’s protection online and remove harmful content is to fail children.’
John Church, the ISPCC’s chief, is to tell TDs and senators: ‘A quick search in the app store will list apps which are not household names to us, but are very familiar to our children. It can be these smaller, newer apps that can often cause the biggest and most complex problems, which can be difficult to resolve adequately.’
And he will criticise the faliure of Leo Varadkar’s government to get a grip on child protection online, saying the Government’s coolly received Action Plan for Online Safety which was launched in July ‘fell short in a commitment to statutory regulation’.
‘It is our experience these failures can impact negatively on children and that there are positive actions that Ireland can take to better protect children online,’ he will add.
Mr Church is also expected to outline to the committee two recent contacts to Childline’s web chat service.
One recounts the disturbing case of a teenage girl who said she wanted to kill herself after her boyfriend threatened to share her nude photos online.
Another will detail the fears of a 13-year-old boy who was petrified he would be arrested after he was sent child abuse images by someone he had met in an online chat room.
‘These case examples illustrate the fear and isolation children feel when something they do online goes horribly wrong and they perceive the situation is out of their control to manage,’ Mr Church will tell the committee.
The charity boss will also refer to the appearance of the newly appointed Communications Minister Richard Bruton before the committee recently when he said it was time to move beyond self-regulation in the industry. Mr Bruton, who as education minister issued a directive that all schools to review their smartphone usage policy, has committed to showing ‘the same commitment to online safety in my new brief as I did in my old brief ’.
He also told the committee recently that there was an ‘urgent’ need to protect children online. Facebook and Google have also been invited to appear at the committee.
However Mr Chruch’s opening remarks on behalf of the ISPCC are expected to make a pointed reference to the scandal revealed by Channel 4’s Dispatchges team, which showed the company’s content editors were deliberately leaving harmful content online – including images of child abuse, a man eating live mice, and two schoolgirls fighting.
Mr Church will say: ‘In recent times, the public has been presented with stark examples of where self-regulation is failing. It is our experience that these failures can impact negatively on children, and that there are positive actions that Ireland can take to better protect children online.
‘Notwithstanding the commitment to self-regulation in the action plan, and perhaps to reflect the fast-changing nature of this space, we were delighted to hear Mr Bruton’s comments at the committee’s detailed scrutiny stage where the minister stated it was time to move beyond self-regulation and highlighted the need for a regulatory body in the online space.
‘Moreover, while the ISPCC accepts that there will be much deliberation over what this model of regulation will look like, we urge the committee and the minister to seize the opportunity now presented, to act.’
‘Self-regulation is failing’