Web giants given final warning on children

Firms face fines of more than £1bn if they don’t enforce age checks

FACEBOOK and Google will be forced to introduce strict age checks on their websites or assume all their users are children.

Web firms that hoover up people’s personal information will have to guarantee they know the age of their users before allowing them to set up an account.

Companies that don’t face fines of up to 4 per cent of their global turnover – £1.67 billion in the case of Facebook.

The age checks are part of a tough new code being drawn up by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is backed by existing laws and will come into force as early as the autumn.

Experts claim it will have a ‘transformative’ effect on social media sites, which have been accused of exposing young people to dangerous material, bullying and predators. It includes rules to help protect children from paedophiles online.

The code also aims to stop web firms bombarding children with harmful material, a problem highlighted by the case of Molly Russell, 14, who killed herself after Instagram allowed her to see self-harm images. Under the new code:

■ Tech firms will be banned from building up a ‘profile’ of children based on their search history, and then using it to send them suggestions for material such as pornography, hate speech and self-harm;

■ Children’s privacy settings must auto-

‘This is so radical’

matically be set to the highest level;

■ Geolocation services must be switched off by default, making it harder for paedophiles to target children based on their whereabouts;

■ Tech firms will not be allowed to include features on children’s accounts designed to fuel addictive behaviour, including online videos that automatically start one after the other, notifications that arrive through the night, and prompts nudging children to lower their privacy settings.

Once the new rules are implemented, children could be asked to prove their age by uploading their passport or birth certificate to an independent verification firm. This would then give them a digital ‘fingerprint’ which they could use to demonstrate their age on other websites.

Alternatively, the tech firms could ask children to get their parents’ consent, and have the parents prove their identity with a credit card.

If the web giants cannot guarantee the age of their users, they will have to assume they are all children – and dramatically limit the amount of

information they collect on them, as set out in the code. At present, a third of British children aged 11 and nearly half of those aged 12 have an account on Facebook, Twitter or another social network, Ofcom figures show. Many youngsters are exposed to material or conversations they are too young to cope with as a result. ICO deputy commissioner Steve Wood said: ‘ We are going to be making it quite clear that there is a reasonable expectation that companies stick to their own published terms and policies, including what they say about age restrictions.’

Baroness Beeban Kidron, who tabled a House of Lords amendment which ensured the new code was drawn up and put into law, added: ‘I expect the code to say: “You may not, as a company, help children find things that are detrimental to their health and well-being”. That is transformative. This is so radical because it goes into the engine room, into the mechanics of how businesses work and says you cannot exploit children.’

The rules will come into force by the end of the year, and will be policed by the ICO, which has the power to hand out huge fines.

It will also use its powers to crack down on any web firm that does not have controls in place to enforce its own terms and conditions. Companies that say they ban pornography and hate speech online will have to show the watchdog they have reporting mechanisms in place, and that they quickly remove problem material.

Firms that demand children are aged 13 or above – as most web giants do – will also have to demonstrate that they strictly enforce this policy.

At the moment, web giants such as Facebook simply ask children to confirm their age by entering their date of birth without demanding proof.