Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister here to discuss what is a very important topic. It is one issue of all the parts of this legislation that has exercised many people. I have had an awful lot of letters, telephone calls and emails in this regard. I have also had conversations with members of parties in this House and the other House who have grave reservations about the legislation. Some of them have said that this is the party line and they must stick to it. However, Deputy Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, came before this House recently to address us and talked about the important role we have and the expectation he, as Taoiseach, has of us, that is, that we are to revise and add to legislation. That is the role of the Seanad. It is not a question of the Minister, the Department or the Lower House fighting or conflicting with one another. It is about getting legislation that is right and good. I will not talk at length about areas I was going to talk about because my colleagues, the two previous speakers, have touched on them.

I have an iPhone in my hand. It is a very powerful yet potentially lethal and dangerous thing. I have the capacity to access information which, yes, is educational and informative, but also the power to damage people's reputation, to blackmail people, to lure in people, to focus on particular messages and to exchange photographs as this model has a camera. In the wrong hands this is a lethal and dangerous piece of technology, and that is very important to say because it is the reality of the matter. Far too often I have met people whose children, some of them, sadly, younger than 13 years of age, have been the subject of intimidation and bullying of a sexual nature and other natures and have been devastated.

A daughter of a friend of mine used to attend a private school in south County Dublin. Last year she noticed some strange activity on the part of this daughter, a very bright, able girl. She eventually confronted her because her phone kept going on and off and took her phone from her. The daughter told her she was being intimidated and bullied and that it was happening in the school. Of course, the mother went to the school and the school did not want to get involved. Some weeks later her sister had a similar experience, but on this occasion she is very lucky her sister is alive because her sister had to lift her off a rafter in their home. She had become very unwell and got no support. When we talked about this conversation, she spoke about the trauma of it and the hatred of herself. That girl did not go back to school for one year, at which stage she was 14. She eventually told her mother she did not want to go to a school where she would be recognised or known and did not want to be seen in her community. She chose to go to a school in north County Dublin. I am happy to say the girl moved on, but not everyone is as lucky, and that is the power of the Internet and social media.

I wish to focus on a few more matters, specifically one aspect of the legislation, which concerns the digital age of consent.I do not think any of the previous speakers or myself are in any way against children having supervised access, knowledge, training and induction to social media and the power of the Internet. The reality is that is a powerful tool and we must live with that, but we do need to protect children. There are serious issues about the right to parenting, by which I mean guardianship and the different contexts around that. Senator McDowell referred to this earlier in relation to what constitutes family in the broadest sense of a child that is loved and nurtured by an adult who is charged with their guardianship, who has the responsibility to love, protect and defend that child in its life. That is really important. We are talking about the rights of parents and guardians to care, defend and protect their children.

I was in Austria recently and spoke to colleagues from Germany and France where they have had similar arguments. They have had this debate and have chosen 16 years. I do not know that the problem is here about 16 years. They have teased it out and brought in experts and having considered it, their view is the age of 16 years.

I acknowledge the work of the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, which prepared a digest about the Data Protection Bill. We spoke about this previously. During pre-legislative scrutiny, there were several key issues of which the Minister will be aware. On 12 May 2017, the Department of Justice and Equality published a general scheme, following which there was scrutiny. There was a recommendation that detailed consultation would take place with children of all ages to ascertain their views of the proposed measures on data protection. That has not taken place. It may have been technically a difficult thing to do but it was important. It is important that we try to get feedback and engage with people.

This all stems from the right of a parent or guardian to protect their children. People are vulnerable. They develop at different stages in their lives in their emotional and sexual development, their realisation of who they are. Earlier, Senator Joan Freeman spoke of the age of 13 years. Looking back at what I was at 13 years of age, very confused and mixed up, I would say I was a vulnerable little boy. Had I had a smart phone in my hand, I do not know what I would have been looking at or who I would have been making contact with or whether the power of that instrument would have made me feel better, stronger, more needed, more loved and accepted. Venturing deep into the Internet would I have been leaving myself exposed and more vulnerable? Might I have been leaving myself to be violated and taken advantage of? At my age, I can say that yes, I would have. What safety measures are we putting in?

I know the Minister is reasonable. I will conclude by asking him to look again. He has a very able colleague in the Minister, Deputy Katherine Zappone. I do not know where she is coming from on this as I have not had that conversation with her. I think the Minister should go back and look at this. He should talk to his colleagues in Germany and France and ask them their logic and reasoning in adopting 16 years. He would be quite enlightened by that as they have had this debate and argument. I appeal to him at this stage to look again, reconsider, and leave that choice at 16 years. It goes back to the digital age of consent. It is too frightening a thought that a 13 or 14 year old could sign away digital consent, could share photographs and biographies of themselves, and share pictures of their extended family not only information about themselves, without necessarily knowing what they were doing or the ramifications of having contractually given their consent to one of these online companies.

Yesterday, Senator Catherine Noone and I were at a meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, BIPA, in the House of Commons. We spoke there about online platforms and the power of advertising in the context of obesity in children. We were talking about how commercial companies target children for chocolate, Coke and lots of things full of sugar. We had an insight from people inside that industry and how they set about marketing and how online marketing, which they tell us has not yet advanced to food and confectionary, is always on their radar. They want to market foods and drinks with sugars to children. These big multinational companies sit down at board level to see how they can target young children and get them into certain habits to make more profits. Conscious that I would be coming for this debate today, I was listening to the techniques they use and how online will eventually become an issue. I draw this parallel with giving digital consent to children of 13, 14 and 15 years, which is allowed by this Bill. This is very dangerous and need to protect these children. We need to empower and allow parents and guardians to protect their children. That is the key message and I ask the Minister to reconsider.