Ms Alex Cooney:

The minimum age restriction on most of the popular online services is 13. Some of them are 16. From our data we see that many children under that age access those services. Even as young as eight and nine they access them in some numbers. Clearly, the restrictions that are in place do not work. We need to look at that and there may be other ways around it. We do not want children to have to hand over more of their data to determine their age. We want to see things like scanning that does not hold any data, is immediately deleted and is not given to the online service that determines whether that is a child. There are other ways of determining whether it is a child, such as the language they are using. There is a lot more we can consider to ensure children are protected from harmful online content, not just social media platforms that are not suitable for them.

On the right age, we are asked this all the time. It is very difficult to give an exact age. Thirteen is the age that is generally used. It is also used in US legislation, but we would say to parents who are considering allowing their children to sign up for these services that it depends on the maturity of the child and the parents' ability to support and engage with the child on this.

We need much more involvement from parents and carers in children's online journey, especially when they are under the age of 13 so that they are well prepared for the online experience.