Most support ban on smartphones
Half of us would prefer to see restrictions for the under-16s
MORE than half of adults want to ban smartphones for children under the age of 16, an Irish Daily Mail poll has revealed.
A recent study showed that a quarter of children as young as six have smartphones, despite major concerns over cyberbullying, online grooming and access to pornography.
When asked ‘if you are in favour of blocking under 16s from having access to smartphones’, 53% of respondents said ‘Yes’, while 24% did not agree, the poll of 1,000 people on February 13 and 14 found.
The remaining 18% ‘didn’t know’ whether such a measure would be beneficial.
More women – 57% – agreed with the proposal than men – 48%.
Munster showed the greatest proportion – 59% – of adults in favour of such a ban. The question followed similar calls from the mother of Brianna Ghey, the 16-yearold who was murdered in Warrington, England, last year by two then 15-year-olds known to her. Earlier this month, Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were each given life sentences at Manchester Crown Court and ordered to serve a minimum term of 22 and 20 years respectively before parole would be considered.
However, expecting social media giants and phone companies to play their part in child safety has proven difficult after they refused a request by the Minister for Education Norma Foley.
She had asked for greater controls from social media companies on age verification and for network companies to support parents in not buying phones for primary school children. But last week, after meeting with stakeholders including Meta, Google and Vodafone, she said they were ‘not prepared to support the work we’re doing’.
The Minister emphasised that the Department of Education is not anti-smartphone, and though social media is a ‘wonderful gift’, it comes with an ‘enormous responsibility and a duty of care’.
A recent Amarách Research survey for charity CyberSafeKids found 24% of children aged six have their own smartphone, but 52% of parents were not confident about how to teach their children how to stay safe online. The Minister and her officials met representatives from Meta, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, Three Ireland, Vodafone, Tesco and Ibec. The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, did not attend.
Ms Foley said there was ‘very robust engagement’ and a ‘very frank and open’ discussion at the meeting, where ‘adult-to-child sextortion’, recommendation algorithms, and AI were discussed.
‘There were two that I was very keen to advance, and the first one was in the area of age verification,’ Ms Foley said after the meeting.
‘I’m very conscious that, in particular, social media providers would tell us they have a mandate around the 13 years of age, but I think we all know that there are children younger than 13 accessing these platforms. And I know it from my own experience, I know from engaging with parents, I know from engaging with schools, that they would identify it as a clear issue for them that there are children much, much younger than 13.’
She said the companies raised concerns about how age verification would be done, and that a passport or a live selfie raised ‘privacy’ concerns. ‘I was clear, it’s not the mechanism, I’m not prescriptive on that. We just require a mechanism. I would need them to come forward with a type of mechanism, which wasn’t forthcoming at this point, a type of mechanism that would ensure categorically the age verification is working.’ She said the ultimate responsibility in this area lies with Coimisiún na Meán, the newly-established media regulator. The body is establishing a safety code for video-sharing platforms, for which public consultation has concluded and will have the power to issue fines.
Asked about how far the Government would push this, Ms Foley said that there is no one person or organisation to blame, but mentioned fines ‘up to €20million, or 10% of profits’ that could be imposed by the Coimisiún.
Both of Brianna’s killers were 15 years old when they attacked her with a hunting knife after luring her to a park. The trial heard Jenkinson had watched videos of torture and murder online and researched methods used by serial killers. The teenagers used their smartphones to communicate with each other about their plans.
Brianna’s mother, Esther, is campaigning for under-16s to be limited to smartphones with built-in restrictions. This would mean ‘if you’re over 16, you can have an adult phone, but under the age of 16 you can have a children’s phone, which will not have all the social media apps that are out there.
‘The phones should have software that connects a parent’s and child’s phone so that “if a child is searching the kind of words that Scarlett and Eddie were searching, it will then flag up on the parent’s phone”,’ she said.