Smartphones ‘potentially lethal’
A SMARTPHONE is a ‘very powerful, yet potentially lethal and dangerous thing’, a senator has warned.
In a Seanad debate, Independent Senator Victor Boyhan revealed how two children of a friend of his were ‘bullied’ on their smartphones – leading to one of them attempting to take her own life.
He said the situation came to light when his friend noticed some ‘strange activity’ from one of her daughters, which the family eventually ‘confronted’ her about, as her phone ‘kept going on and off’.
The teenager told her mother she was being ‘intimidated and bullied’ and that it was happening in school.
‘Of course, [the mother] went to the school and the school did not want to get involved,’ Senator Boyhan said – adding that some weeks later the girl’s sister had ‘a similar experience’, which led to her attempting to take her own life.
‘[She] had become very unwell and got no support,’ the senator said.
He was speaking during a debate in the Seanad on the Data Protection Bill, including the proposal to set the digital age of consent at 13. The digital age of consent essentially means the age at which young people can sign up for online services without needing the explicit approval of their parents and guardians.
Senator Boyhan held up an iPhone, and said: ‘I have the capacity to access information and, yes, that is educational and that is informative. But it also has the power to damage people’s reputation, to blackmail people, to lure in people, to focus on particular messages, to exchange photographs.
‘In the wrong hands it is a lethal and dangerous piece of technology.’
He went on to discuss specifically the proposal to set the digital age of consent at 13, which is currently set to take effect here from May. Fine Gael’s Senator Catherine Noone recently went against her own Government’s policy by calling for the age to be raised to 16.
Senator Boyhan said he was in Austria recently where he ‘spoke to colleagues from Germany and France’. ‘They have had this debate and they have chosen 16,’ he added. ‘I do not know what the problem is here about 16 years.’
Justice Minister Charles Flanagan was present in the Seanad for the discussion.
He said the Government decided to set the age at 13 after consideration and two public consultation processes, which ‘took account of the expertise and knowledge of those who responded’.
He added: ‘Setting the age at 13 was seen – and still is seen – as representing something of an appropriate balancing of a child’s right to participate in an online environment and, of course, the right to safety and protection.’
ON a closely related subject, this newspaper welcomes Senator Victor Boyhan’s comment on smartphones being ‘potentially lethal and dangerous’. He also told how a friend’s daughter attempted to harm herself after suffering intimidation and bullying by phone.
The basic common sense of what Senator Boyhan had to say makes the failure of TDs to tackle the situation even more baffling. It also serves as a clear reminder that the Open Policy Forum debate needs to properly address the issue of age limits on owning smartphones.
This is what the majority of people in this country want to see introduced. Accordingly, it is about time our political leaders started listening to the voters who elected them to public office.