Upcoming powers in legislation regulating online spaces will force Big Tech companies to give bereaved parents as well as coroners the content of their dead children’s accounts, according to the UK government.
The government wants to add an amendment to the Online Safety Bill which will help to access information held by tech companies that could help identify a child’s cause of death.
Under the new law, bosses who refuse to hand over the data could face up to a year in jail and fines of up to 10 percent of their companies’ global turnover.
The law is inspired by Bereaved Families for Online Safety, a group started by a group of parents including those of Molly Russell. In November 2017, Russell, whose father said she showed no obvious signs of mental illness before, took her own life, after viewing online content related to depression and self-harm for months.
Last year, the lawyer representing Russell’s family accused Facebook and Instagram owner Meta of using “wholly misconceived and fabricated” arguments to withhold data from an inquest into her death. Meta was also ordered to disclose documents and data in relation to research it had conducted into the harm that may be caused to children by using its platforms.
No Longer Allowed to ‘Stonewall’
Announcing the changes in the Lords, culture minister Lord Parkinson said companies would no longer be allowed to “stonewall” families seeking answers to the role of social media in their deaths.“We must ensure companies cannot stonewall parents who have lost a child and that those parents are treated with the humanity and compassion that they deserve,” he said.
The moves are to be set out in amendments to the bill next week.
The upcoming Online Safety Bill was introduced by the Conservatives in Parliament on March 17.
The bill is intended to “protect children from harmful content such as pornography and limit people’s exposure to illegal content, while protecting freedom of speech.”
Under the Bill, the biggest social media platforms must carry out risk assessments on the types of harms that could appear on their services and how they plan to address them, setting out how they will do this in their terms of service.
‘Fighting for Access’
Lady Kidron, a filmmaker and advocate for children’s rights online, told the Lords she would withdraw her proposals to amend the Bill because of the government’s promises.“While parents have been fighting for access to information, those same companies have continued to suggest friends, material, and behaviours that drive children into places and spaces in which they are undermined, radicalised into despair, and come to harm,” she said.
“In no other circumstance would it be acceptable to withhold relevant information from a court procedure,” she added.
“It is both immoral and a failure of justice if coroners cannot access and review all relevant evidence. For the families, it adds pain to heartbreak as they are unable to come to terms with what has happened because there is still so much that they do not know,” said Kidron.
Conservative former culture secretary Baroness Morgan of Cotes, who gave her backing, said: “The noble lady’s various amendments are not only sensible but absolutely the right thing to do, and I think it is a great tragedy in many ways that we have had to wait for this piece of primary legislation for these companies to start being compelled at all.”
Lib Dem peer Lord Allan of Hallam, who worked as Facebook’s director of policy in Europe between 2009 and 2019, said he believed that social media companies would welcome the proposals.
“If I still worked for an online service, I would welcome this shift of responsibility for these decisions. I hope that we will see the new process—which, as I understand, will be introduced in later amendments—work smoothly, with good co-operation from regulated services,” said Allan.
