Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to talk about the digital age of consent and whether it should be set at 16 or 13. I strongly believe that it needs to be set at 16 but I acknowledge that everybody in this debate, including the Minister and others who are advocating setting it at 13, wants to act in the best interests of young people and provide them with the best protection. Some of the debate has been fractious, which is unfortunate but nobody engaged in this debate has anything but the best of intentions for the children involved.

Should the age of consent be set at 16, 13 or somewhere in between? As Deputies Thomas Byrne and O'Callaghan have pointed out, Fianna Fáil's position is that it should be set at 16. I support that position and want to explain why. The question that the Minister, in advocating for 13, will have to answer is whether 13 or 14 year olds should have to consent to being profiled by Internet companies and to sharing their online activity including text messages, photographs and location with service providers. Should they, for example, consent to Facebook permanently owning all of the photographs they put up online and all of their location information? Should they consent to companies psychologically profiling them based on their use of applications and then using their images, online behaviour, location and demographics to target them and sell to them? That is what the online providers want to do because that is how they make money and stay in business. The industry wants the age of consent to be 13 because it wants to be able to tell potential advertisers that young people aged 13 or 14 have said that they consent to technology companies having full access to their photographs, contacts, text messages, location, everything they like, dislike or express a view on; to being profiled; to being sold stuff; and to the selling of the information gathered about them to other third party providers. That is what the technology companies would like because they will make more money that way. Should 13 to 15 year olds have to consent to being profiled as products in order to be able to use Teamer or WhatsApp or any other application? No, they should not have to do that.

The argument I have heard from those advocating 13 as the age of digital consent is that if we opt for 16, the service providers will argue that no-one using their platform is below the age of 16 and will create an environment or platform that is only suitable for those aged 16 and over. The suggestion is that 13 to 15 year olds will still access those platforms and that therefore, we are implicitly accepting that 13 to 15 year olds will end up on platforms that the service providers have designed for those aged 16 and over. They will be accessing inappropriate platforms. That is one argument. The other argument is that if the above does not happen, the 13 to 15 year olds will be locked out of the platforms or services. The evidence provided for this argument is WhatsApp saying that it will not let 13 to 15 year olds access its product. The argument is that if the digital age of consent changes to 16, service providers will not provide a service for younger people. Do 13 to 15 year olds have the right to engage in online activity and to communicate with their friends through social media applications? Of course they have that right. Let us follow the argument through. Let us say we opt for 16, which I hope we do for all of the right reasons. The argument is that then a bunch of 13 year olds will go onto sites or platforms and be exposed to an inappropriate environment. If that happens regulators, parents, consumer groups, politicians and journalists will be all over those applications very quickly. We know that they need good publicity and are sensitive to how they are portrayed. We have just seen Facebook and Google pull back from running referendum advertisements in Ireland. We would have to believe that service providers would knowingly allow 13 year olds onto platforms designed for those aged 16 and over and would be okay with taking that risk. They would not be okay with that and those dumb enough to take such a risk would very quickly be found out and shut down. That is what happens if there is non-verification of 13 year olds.

If there is verification, the argument is that the 13 to 15 year olds will be locked out of applications like Teamer or WhatsApp. However, for that to be true, we would have to believe that we live in a world where another service provider would not immediately move in and offer an age appropriate platform to 13 to 15 year olds. That age cohort is the fastest growing consumer group for digital platforms so it is simply not credible that if 13 to 15 year olds are locked out of current platforms that age-appropriate equivalents will not be provided immediately. In fact, what will happen is that those companies that say they will not provide access to their application to those under 16 will actually do so. They will do it very quickly and will do it for all of the countries that opt for a digital age of consent of 16 because if they do not, they will be turning their backs on the biggest consumer group in the country for no good reason.

I repeat that I believe everyone is coming at this with the best interests of young people at heart.

I believe the arguments put forward for the relevant age to be 13 simply do not stack up against reality. The best way to ensure young people are suitably protected from having to give up ownership of their texts, photos and online activity to companies so that they can be profiled and sold to, while still having access to an online world, is to set the age at 16.

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