Ms Niamh Hodnett:

I thank Mr. Godfrey and Senator Carrigy. Some of the measures we discussed in our call for input, which we published in July, are measures that could be put in our first online safety code. They include two things that touch on the points the Senator has quite rightly raised: one is age verification and the other is parental controls. The types of parental control we are considering putting in our first online safety code are time limits, geolocation settings set to off, privacy settings set to on and no contact with strangers. These should be set by default potentially and be transparent and user friendly. These are the types of measures we will be consulting on in our draft online safety code consultation in the autumn. Based on those responses we will decide on whether to include these in the final code.

Another measure we are looking at including in our first online safety code, and which was the subject of our call for inputs, is age verification. Again, this is subject to consultation and our drafting of the online safety code in the autumn before we decide on what will make its way to the final binding online safety code. There is no silver bullet with regard to age verification. We have been looking at this in detail. Clearly, self-declaration or asking a child to declare his or her age is not an effective form of age verification under any measure. Some platforms are using age estimation using artificial intelligence as a way to gauge an age. At the upper end of the spectrum there is a requirement for hard age verification. This is for accessing age-inappropriate content such as pornography, or extreme or gratuitous violence, and that type of content. Without hard age verification there would be a requirement to show a government ID and have a selfie likeness attached to it. Because there is a range of issues, from privacy to mandating a new form of technology, there is a danger it could get overtaken in time. These are issues we need to consider, taking into account all the submissions from our call for inputs. In light of all the submissions, we have been looking again at the consultation for our draft online safety code. Those two measures of parental controls and age verification are certainly being considered. There is also a role for the education of parents of children as to what platforms are appropriate for them given their age.