11/12/2017 Tough code of practice for websites will aim to protect children online | Technology | The Guardian

Tough code of practice for websites will aim to

protect children online
Facing potential Lords defeat, government announces it will back data protection bill amendment to
safeguard childrens privacy

Jessica Elgot
Friday 8 December 2017 18.38GMT

Websites and apps will be subject to a tough new code of practice to protect childrens privacy
online following a cross-party campaign in the House of Lords to prevent young peoples internet
activity being monitored.

Facing a potential defeat by peers, the government has announced it will back a new amendment
to the data protection bill, derived from one authored by the lm director and cross-bench peer
Beeban Kidron, which has been backed by Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems.

Lady Kidron, whose lms include Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, said childrens data was
constantly being gathered in order to bombard them with targeted advertising, risking their
personal information being disseminated across the web.

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11/12/2017 Tough code of practice for websites will aim to protect children online | Technology | The Guardian

She has previously highlighted how companies such as Instagram, owned by Facebook, collect
and share childrens home and school addresses, track their locations and store their dates of
birth, phone numbers and photos.

The digital minister Matt Hancock said his department had agreed to create a statutory process by
which a code from the information commissioners oce on age-appropriate website design could
be produced.

It will set new standards of privacy on websites and apps for children under 18 which make clear
what personal data is being collected, how it is being used and how children and parents can stay
in control of the data.

We strongly support freedom online, while protecting people, and particularly children, from
harm, Hancock said. There is growing evidence on the need for this. This statutory code of
practice will require tailored protections to be built into websites and apps for children under 16.
This must be done in a way that protects the wonderful freedom and opportunity of the internet,
without jeopardising the future free ow of data between the UK and EU.

The government might have lost in the House of Lords had it not accepted the new protection
measures, owing to strong cross-bench support for passing Kidrons original amendment,
including from the Conservative peer Dido Harding, a former chief executive of TalkTalk, who
told the Guardian last month that regulation was the last option available.

I would love to believe that commercial platforms will move fast enough that you dont have to
regulate, but there is no sign that they are, she said.

The move has been backed by a raft of high-prole media organisations and charities including
the NSPCC, the childrens commissioner for England, Sky, TalkTalk, YoungMinds and the
Childrens Society.

These amendments unequivocally establish that children are children even online, Kidron
said. And I hope that all of us can now continue to work to make certain that the same principle is
reected in every aspect of a childs digital life. There is still much to do.

It is stated on the face of the bill that the code must meet the development needs of children and
that the regulator must take account of children, parents and those who advocate for childrens
rights online, as well as industry. It is up to us all to make sure that the code is robust, meaningful
and eective for children.

The ICO will be given time to carry out a proper consultation on the code of practice but will be
expected to present a draft code for parliamentary approval within 18 months of the day on which
the data protection bill passes into law.

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Topics
Data protection
Internet safety
Children
Data and computer security
Internet
Privacy
news

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