Online Child Protection Inquiry Announces Witnesses

A cross-party group of more than sixty Members of the Houses of Parliament announced the formation of a Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection in August. Over the next few months the inquiry will take evidence from parents, child protection experts, Internet experts and Chief Executives of many of Britain's largest Internet Service Providers. The group will report to Ministers in November. The first public evidence session will now take place on:

Thursday 8th September

Committee Room 8

14:00-16:00

The Inquiry has confirmed the following witnesses for this session:

14:00-15:00

• The Sun's Agony Aunt, Deidre Sanders, an active campaigner in this area
• The Rt Hon Jacqui Smith, former Home Secretary and producer of BBC investigation into porn
• Jerry Barnett, MD of UKs largest on demand online pornography website, Strictly Broadband
• Justine Roberts, Founder Mumsnet
• Julie Bentley, Chief Executive, Family Planning Association
• Will Gardner, Chief Executive Officer, Childnet International

15:00-16:00

• Professor Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology, LSE, author of EU Kids Online
• Donald Findlater, Director of Research and Development, Lucy Faithful Foundation.
• Fleur Dorrell, Head of Policy, The Mother's Union
• Lucie Russell, Director of Campaigns, Policy and Participation, YoungMinds
• Tink Palmer, Marie Collins Foundation

Commenting, Inquiry Chair Claire Perry MP said:

"Parents are understandably worried about the ease with which their children can view pornographic content on the Internet and this Inquiry will provide the ideal platform for all interested parties to discuss how best we can protect our children online."

Communications Minister Ed Vaizey said:

"The Internet is a powerful tool for education and entertainment but there is material online that is not suitable for children. Parents need to have the right tools to be able to protect their children from inappropriate content. I look forward to receiving the Inquiry's report and seeing their conclusions."

Notes:

Terms of Reference: Over the course of two evidence sessions, this inquiry will seek:

1. To understand better the extent to which children access on-line pornography and the potential for harm that this may cause
2. To determine what British Internet Service Providers have done to date to protect children online and the extent and possible impact of their future plans in this area
3. To determine what additional tools parents require to protect children from inappropriate content
4. To establish the arguments for and against network level filtering of content that would require an 18 rating in other forms of media
5. To recommend to Government the possible form of regulation required if ISPs fail to meet Recommendation no.5 from the Bailey Review.

The session will be open to the public on a first come, first served basis as seating is limited and there is no system of tickets or advance booking. Please advise security staff that you are attending a committee meeting and they will direct you. You should allow at least 20 minutes to go through security.

Witness Biographies:

Session A - 14:00-15:00:

Deidre Sanders – The Sun

Deidre Sanders is the country's longest-serving agony aunt, who has written the 'Dear Deidre' advice column for The Sun for over 30 years. During this time she has answered over 6 million calls for help, written over 200 advice booklets and responds to over 1000 readers every week. She is a Patron of the National Association of People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) and of the Family and Parenting Institute, an honorary member of the NSPCC and was a member of the National Commission of Enquiry into the Prevention of Child Abuse. She was also closely involved with the social work reform programme 'Building a safe, confident future' developed by the Social Work Taskforce as a response to the Peter Connelly ('Baby P') case and accepted by the Government in 2009.

The Rt. Hon Jacqui Smith

The Rt. Hon Jacqui Smith is a member of the Labour Party, former Labour MP and former Home Secretary. She left Parliament in 2010 and currently works as a broadcaster, consultant and advisor. She had a 10-year ministerial career spanning 1997 – 2007 during which she served as Minister of State at the Department of Health, Minister for Industry and the Regions, Minister for Equality and Minister for Schools. In 2006 she was appointed to Tony Blair's Cabinet as Chief Whip and in 2007 she became Home Secretary, the first woman in Britain to hold this position. As Home Secretary she dealt with matters including terrorism, police powers and prostitution; she was also instrumental in changing the law to criminalise possession of violent or extreme pornographic images. Following up this concern further, in March 2011 she produced a documentary on pornography, 'Porn Again', for BBC Radio 5 Live, in which she attempted to understand more about this issue by interviewing people involved in the production of pornography. She has expressed concern about the availability of unregulated pornographic material to people of all ages and has called for the pornography industry to fund 'real sex education' in schools.

Jerry Barnett – Online Pornographer

Jerry Barnett, online pornographer and Managing Director of the UK's largest on demand online pornography website, Strictly Broadband.

Justine Roberts – Mumsnet

Justine Roberts is Co-Founder and CEO of Mumsnet; an online community of parents sharing advice, support and product recommendations. Over the last ten years it has grown into the UK's busiest social network for parents with over four million visits a month and 25,000 posts a day. Mumsnet now hosts over 200 local websites, a network of bloggers, and regularly campaigns on issues including support for families with SEN, improvements in miscarriage care and freedom of speech on the Internet. Before Mumsnet, Justine wrote about football and cricket for the Daily Telegraph and the Times and before that was an economist and strategist for SG Warburg.

Julie Bentley – Family Planning Association

Julie has been the FPA Chief Executive since 2008. She has over 17 years of experience in the charity sector, including working in the fields of young people, substance misuse, homelessness, personal safety and sexual health. The FPA is an organisation that advocates making sexual health a priority public health issue in the UK. Their vision is of a country where talking sense about sex is the norm not the exception. The FPA educate and inform thousands of people about sexual health each year and campaign to improve sexual health services.

Will Gardner - Childnet

Will Gardner is the CEO of Childnet International, which works in three main areas of internet safety: Access, Awareness and Protection and Policy. Access and promoting quality content: helping children and young people to use the internet constructively; Awareness and advice: helping children and young people to acquire digital literacy; advising parents, teachers, organisations and industry about e-safety; Protection and policy: Working with other bodies to help protect children and young people from online abuse and exploitation; initiating and responding to policy changes. Childnet's scope is focused on informing children and adults about internet risks and safety rather than lobbying ISPs to change. It has produced the awareness-raising software programmes 'Know IT All', an award-winning suite of educational resources for young people, parents and teachers on safe and positive internet use, and 'Kidsmart', an internet safety programme run in schools in the UK and internationally.

Session B - 15:00-16:00

Professor Sonia Livingstone

Professor Sonia Livingstone is Professor of Social Psychology and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. She is a researcher, author and editor in her specialist subject of children's and young people's use of the internet and digital media. She has written or edited fourteen books including 'Kids Online: Opportunities and Risks for Children' (2009). Since 2006, Professor Livingstone has directed the 25-country network EU Kids Online for the European Commission's Safer Internet Programme which has conducted multinational European research on 9 – 19-year-olds' internet use, risks and safety. In 2009, she worked on the ESRC-funded project 'UK Children Go Online'. She has served on numerous boards and taskforces related to digital literacy and safety, has advised Ofcom, the Home Office, the Byron Review, the BBC and the DfE as well as currently serving as Evidence Champion on the Executive Board of the UK's Council for Child Internet Safety.

Donald Findlater – Lucy Faithful Foundation

Donald Findlater is Director of Research and Development at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child protection charity that aims to reduce the risk of child sexual abuse both on and offline through work with perpetrators, victims and families. The Foundation provides assessments, interventions and treatment for known offenders, case-specific advice and support for victims and educational programmes, courses and workshops for schools which address online risks and safety in many areas including cyberbullying. The Foundation believes that the availability of pornography to people of all ages is an issue that needs to be stringently addressed; that the pornography industry must take greater responsibility for controlling access to this material; that sound and practical advice should be made available to parents and carers as a matter of priority and that internet safety is a community issue. The Foundation recommends that many more community hubs including schools, faith communities and retail outlets need to take responsibility for providing e-safety education to parents.

Fleur Dorrell – The Mother's Union

Fleur Dorrell is Head of Faith and Policy at the Mothers' Union, a 4-million strong Christian-based family care organisation that works in 83 countries to provide families with practical and emotional support, tackle poverty and challenge injustice. Reg Bailey, the CEO, is the author of the Bailey Review into the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood (2011), which expresses concerns that sexualised imagery is becoming increasingly prevalent in our society to the point of becoming 'wallpaper' to children's lives. The review is careful to point out the distinction between images of a sexual nature within a meaningful context such as a drama or film and these images taken out of any context and used in advertising. The Mothers' Union is calling for: 'an active choice [for adults] whether to view adult content online, rather than receiving it automatically and having to set up filters to remove it'; for the government to take decisive action to tackle the use of sexualised content in goods and services and particularly in the marketing of goods to children; to re-evaluate the effectiveness of the 9 p.m. television watershed and for advertising to be subject to certain extra regulations.

Lucie Russell – YoungMinds

Lucie Russell is Director of Campaigns, Policy and Participation at YoungMinds, the UK's only national charity specifically committed to improving the mental health and emotional wellbeing of all young people. Her role is to raise the profile of YoungMinds, promote the importance of young people's emotional wellbeing and tackle the stigma often associated with mental illness. She has been involved with the development of high-profile campaigns influencing policy and government strategy, working with the media and directing a national participation project enabling young people to raise awareness of emotional problems and mental health and to campaign for and influence local and national mental health provision.

YoungMinds is concerned that 12 to 17-year-olds, the most frequent viewers of internet pornography, are at risk of normalising unhealthy, violent and degrading attitudes to sex and relationships as a result of this exposure and developing mental health issues around sexual behaviour as a consequence. There are also concerns about more general mental health issues relating to excessive internet use.

Tink Palmer – Marie Collins Foundation

Tink Palmer is a clinical and forensic practitioner, manager, trainer, policymaker and strategist in the field of online child abuse and exploitation awareness, prevention and victim recovery. She has been in social work practice since 1973 and has worked with children abused online since 1999. She has written many reports in her particular areas of expertise, including 'Just One Click!' for Barnardo's (2004) and 'Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation of Children Online' for the World Congress III in 2008. In 2010 she worked with UNICEF to produce the report 'Sexual abuse and exploitation in the converged online/offline environments – referral services and rehabilitation'. She is an expert court witness for the criminal justice and care systems and as a member of numerous governmental steering groups, committees and boards dedicated to enhancing public awareness, improving service provision and ensuring best practice both nationally and internationally. She currently chairs the Boards of Trustees of Childnet International and ECPAT UK, a member of UKCCIS and CEO of the Marie Collins Foundation, an NGO supporting young people affected by online abuse.

Back to all posts