Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No 139:

In page 98, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following: “35. Online content by which a person exposes his or her genitals intending to cause fear, distress or alarm to another person contrary to section 45(1) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017.

36. Online content by which a person intentionally engages in offensive conduct of a sexual nature contrary to section 45(3) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017.”.

There are two kinds of categories of harmful online content contained in the Bill at present, those related to existing criminal offences, such as harassment under the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, or Coco's Law, and those that are not linked to criminal offences, such as cyberbullying and the promotion of eating disorders, suicide and self-harm. This amendment will add existing offences from the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 relating to online flashing to the schedule of offence-specific harmful online content in the Bill. This amendment will enable the online safety commissioner to make binding online safety codes that will apply to designated online service providers that will require those providers to take measures to tackle online flashing. Without this amendment, online safety codes could not specifically refer to this type of harmful content online and an coimisiún would not be able to require online service providers to tackle it in terms of how they deal with complaints, how they deliver content and in terms of risk and impact assessments. These codes will apply to online services designated by an coimisiún on the basis of risk assessments and may include social media services, messaging services and videoconferencing services. It will remain the role of An Garda Síochána to investigate allegations of criminal behaviour. An coimisiún's role will be to be oversee the regulatory framework for online safety and hold designated online services accountable for their compliance with online safety codes.