Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I received some correspondence yesterday from a Dr. James O'Higgins Norman, associate professor of sociology at Dublin City University, DCU. He says that as an international and Irish academic working in the field of child Internet safety with an holistic knowledge and understanding of how children engage online, he firmlys believe setting the age of digital consent at 13 years offers the best defence for children's safety and data protection. He says calls for the age to be set higher, at 16 years, for example, are misguided and not endorsed by child protection professionals and those working with children. He says that, under such a system, children aged 13, 14 and 15 years would need parental consent to allow their personal data to be processed by this information society service and that, all the while, there is a general acceptance that current systems of age verification are weak and generally easy to bypass. He asks what unintended safety and protection consequences this will this have, saying attempting to change the behaviour of 13, 14 and 15 year olds by 25 May is not practical. He says the Internet and being online are a fundamental part of most children's lives today and that, to support children's safety, they need digital literacy education, that parents need support and the industry needs to be regulated.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire made a point about amendment No. 29. I accept the points the Minister made about amendment No. 28, at which we will have to look again with reference to the register maintained by Tusla. On amendment No. 29, the Minister said that if we were to go down that path, we would contravene the GDPR. We do not know enough about it to know whether that is definitely true, but we will have to examine it because we believe it would be a positive move to have amendment No. 29 in the Statute Book. It would make sense. It is disappointing if the GDPR has moved away, under pressure, from this position, but we will certainly look at it.