British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has reached an agreement with lawmakers to amend the online safety bill as he promises to go hard on tech executives.
The new bill mandates that any tech executive that fails to protect kids online safety could face the possibility of jail time.
The U.k government is hell-bent on ensuring that the internet is a safe place for kids, by enforcing tech platforms to demand age verification from users so as to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate content.
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The U.K’s secretary of state for culture, digital, media and sports Michelle Donelan said in a statement, “deliver our shared aims of holding people accountable for their actions in a way which is effective and targeted towards child safety, whilst ensuring the UK remains an attractive place for technology companies to invest and grow.”
Donelan further disclosed that she is sympathetic to the aims of the amendment, but strongly believes that the bill already includes other provisions for holding senior managers accountable.
“The final amendment will be carefully designed to capture instances where senior managers, or those purporting to act in that capacity, have consented or connived in ignoring enforceable requirements, risking serious harm to children. Criminal penalties would include imprisonment and fines commensurate with similar offences.
“While this amendment will not affect those who have acted in good faith to comply in a proportionate way, it gives the Act additional teeth to deliver change and ensure that people are held to account if they fail to properly protect children,” she added.
The U.K online safety bill which has on several occasions been debated in the parliament has been a long focus on Internet safety. The bill mandates tech companies to put in the necessary measures to protect children from harmful content and activities that can pose harm to them.
These lawmakers have expressed concerns that these tech companies are not strict with their rules as some minors are still exposed to inappropriate content on their platforms.
These social media companies have been charged to set out their age assurance measure in the terms of service that users will sign up to.
Last November, extra changes were announced that required tech firms to publish risk assessments of the dangers their sites pose to children. Under the structure of the act, platforms will have to carry out risk assessments of the harms their services might cause to children, then explain how they will tackle those risks in their terms of service, in a process that will be vetted by the communications watchdog, Ofcom.