Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It has been a most important discussion. Mr. Church gave the horrific example of the young girl whose images were shared by a former boyfriend. It is shocking.

There is wider concern that during this ten-year increase in the demand for online services, there has also been a significant increase in the incidence of depression and other psychological problems among our young people. A lot of reports I read, and I must admit I have spent the past hour frantically reading as much as I could on the Internet via my own device, show a correlation between the increasing levels of depression, anxiety and other mental health difficulties among young people and the increase in the time young people are online. The harm might not come just from the obvious graphic terrible example but in all sorts of subtle ways, such as exclusion or other mechanisms that affect mental health. Do the witnesses make this direct connection? Everything I have read from the various psychology sources shows an increasing level of depression, anxiety and mental health problems, particularly among young girls it would seem, so that we can make the correlation with the increased use of online services particularly on mobile phones.

Things have developed a lot recently with the passing last month by the European Parliament of the revision of the audiovisual media services directive. I presume it is a foregone conclusion and that the Council will approve it before Christmas. I understand that approximately 80% of all online content is video. Did Ms Cronin state in her contribution that we are looking for regulatory bodies to manage some of this? Given that the BAI is involved in the audiovisual media regulatory environment, and given that the report from the European Parliament had similar issues of concern to what we have here and it very strongly focused on the effect of online media services on young children, if we are looking for an institutional body to house regulation, the BAI might be suitable. We could look at the Data Protection Commissioner or creating an new agency but the BAI might be best placed, given that it is so versed in audiovisual media. What is the difference between online media and broadcast media? For young people the vast majority is online. I am interested to hear the views of the witnesses on this.

I am keen to hear from the companies on last month's report of the European Parliament. Paragraphs 20 and 21 of the report call for the use of encryption and much greater parental control mechanisms to protect young children. Paragraph 21 states personal data of minors processed in the framework of technical child protection measures should not be used for commercial purposes. Does this not call into question the companies' entire commercial approach in the processing of minor's data in particular? It must change. As Tim Berners-Lee said yesterday, the companies are damaging the Internet and causing a threat to it and all the immense benefits it brings, and their commercial model must change. How can the companies live up to the direction from the European Parliament in the new audiovisual media services directive if they do not know with absolute certainty the age of the child being dealt with? We have heard in previous evidence that the current mechanisms they have in place clearly do not do this and the companies cannot tell if a child is 13, 15, 16 or eight. They can say they do but they do not have effective commercial mechanisms to do it. Does the new directive mean they must set in place new mechanisms to guarantee knowing the age of the minors who are on their networks so they can live by the commitment not to use the data for commercial purposes? How can they do this if they do not know whether the person is a minor? In this regard, Ms Cronin said age verification looks like one of the key new regulatory requirements we will see.

I do not have the exact wording but if I read her submission correctly the inclusion of age verification may well be one of the new regulatory measures we will seek to put in place. I would welcome that, given the evidence Mr. Church and others have presented here on the health implications of the use of some of these services.