Bereaved families could get access to children’s profiles

BEREAVED families seeking answers from social media giants may be given the right to access their child’s profiles under the Online Safety Bill.

Baroness Kidron said she would table an amendment to the proposed legislation in the House of Lords in the wake of the Molly Russell inquest.

The family were forced to wait five years to get answers at Molly’s inquest – and faced a difficult battle in getting important data about her online activity from Meta.

In August, the tech giant finally handed over 1,200 Instagram posts the 14-yearold had engaged with – just a month before the inquest began.

It included some of the most distressing videos and posts she had viewed – and proved integral in the evidence North London Coroner’s Court heard.

Merry Varney from law firm Leigh Day, which represented the family, said: ‘Seeking to find out how your loved one died should never be a battle.’

The ruling is also likely to have an impact on lawsuits in both the UK and US against Meta over the impact of its algorithm on child safety.

Eleanor Leedham, legal director for Keller Postman UK, said the inquest’s verdict ‘robustly supports further legal action’ against the company, adding it ‘should serve as a stark warning to other technology giants’.

The NSPCC yesterday said the coroner’s verdict would ‘send shockwaves through Silicon Valley’.

The legislation, which is going through Parliament, will impose a duty of care on the biggest social media firms and search engines to protect users. Ofcom will act as regulator and have the power to hand out hefty fines of up to 10 per cent annual turnover – or even block sites from being used in the UK.

Speaking at a press conference after the inquest, crossbench peer Baroness Kidron told how her inbox was full of people who had lost their children and were struggling to access their online activity.

She explained: ‘I will be bringing forward an amendment to the Online Safety Bill in the House of Lords that seeks to make it easier for bereaved parents to access information from social media companies.’