We must use the law to protect elderly from online fraud, says trust

DUTY OF CARE laws should also protect the elderly from online fraud, an influential trust that backed The Daily Telegraph’s campaign has said.

The Carnegie Trust UK, which first drew up the legal model for regulating tech giants, has written to Nicky Morgan, the Culture Secretary, saying social media firms should “take responsibility” for the “explosion” of consumer fraud on their sites.

The call comes as the trust published a draft bill setting out its vision of enforcing a duty of care framework, including making Ofcom the new regulator armed with “dawn raid” powers to seize data from tech firms.

The government announced in the October Queen’s Speech that it planned to publish a draft duty of care bill next year for pre-legislative scrutiny.

Now the Conservatives have been returned with a strong majority, campaigners are watching to see what form the proposed bill will take in the new Queen’s Speech tomorrow.

In the summer, the Government published a White Paper outlining how it planned to adopt duty of care to clamp down on online harm.

Its initial plans proposed creating a regulator to sanction tech giants if they failed to protect users from a wide range of dangers, from terrorism to self-harm content.

Ministers say they are considering arming the regulator with powers to levy fines running into billions and even to prosecute senior executives for serious breaches of the duty of care.

However, William Perrin, a trustee of Carnegie UK and former senior government adviser, said it was a “strategic error” not to include economic crime under the scope of duty of care.

Mr Perrin warned that the issue would become more salient with more older people now using social media: “The scale of online fraud is astonishing. As more older and vulnerable people come online, it’s only fair that regulation should protect them.”