Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his time today. My amendments are in the same section. I tabled them because I have not been sold on the whole debate on the age of consent. The debate in the media and in these Houses has very much centred on the age we should set, whether it be 13 or 16 years. It is an important conversation that we should have but we are mixing up many things that are connected into the same thing. As a mother of a teenage girl and a girl who is not yet a teenager, I am conscious there are many different households and relationships between children and their parents regarding openness, honesty, education around the Internet and how best to use it. There will be some children who want to talk to their parents about this and some who will not. There will be some parents who will give permission and others who will not. There will be some children who will listen and say, "Okay Mam, I will go on the Internet" or have a certain social media account.

However, on a practical level, most children operate in the space of social media and for them not to be on certain social media accounts with their friends will make them isolated and excluded. It is a double-edged sword. Reference was made to buying scratch cards but we cannot compare these things. That is a single event of one person buying a scratch card, but people's worlds now operate online, so it is a question of how we empower and educate children. I am not looking at this from a children's rights base at all, but on a practical level. Whether the consent is at the age of 13, 15 or 16 years, it does not matter because once the consent is given, whether it is given illegally if the child lies, by the parent or whatever the circumstance, the data will still be taken. We do not protect our children's data, their photographs, videos and content that they share, because even if the consent is given with a lack of understanding about what happens most parents do not realise that data is involved in this at all. They just think that they are giving their child consent to be involved in a platform, whether it is Instagram or something else.

My amendments seek to protect the data of children which takes the onus away from consent and places it on the industry and the market. My daughter showed me a sponsored ad on her Instagram account for lip fillers and cosmetic surgery. She is 11 years old. I do not know what data would give anyone the impression that she was going to have lip fillers. This is what we need to protect people from.My daughter and I have an open relationship, but many other households do not have that. My amendment states that it shall not be lawful for a data controller to process the data of a child for commercial or marketing purposes when the child is under the age of 16. The data companies play a huge role in contributing to the concerning culture which exists and which contributes to psychological problems such as those relating to body image and gambling. There are marketing campaigns that are wholly unsuitable for children. I do not accept that parents should have to take full responsibility for a development which is actually a deliberate strategy on the part of data companies. Most parents will not be in a position to understand that these campaigns are run with the intent of collecting this data.

I propose that we place the onus on data companies to do the work. We must also ensure that they will no longer be allowed to target children with unsuitable and inappropriate data marketing strategies and that their campaigns for adults will not be not targeted - either accidentally or on purpose - at children. Data companies are the experts in this field and could easily ensure that their algorithms and data collection procedures are altered to ensure that children are not included. This would also take a huge amount of pressure off parents to fully police their children, with all the practical challenges that includes. We want to have oversight of our children's' online activity, but we cannot always have that. Other forms of online safety include discussing with whom children should or should not interact and whether their accounts should be private.

Most of my children's friends do not ask for permission to use social media. My daughter takes my phone sometimes and walks off. When I ask her what she is doing, she tells me that she has just sent a verification code to my email so that she can sign up to a service. At ten and 11 years of age, children have it sussed. There is not much of a generation gap between myself and my kids. I am a young mother and I am struggling to keep on top of it. It is really hard for parents to manage this. We can create a safe environment where we fully empower and teach our kids about what platforms they should be on. My daughter knows not to accept a request from somebody she has never met in person, for example. The rule is that if she has not met the individual in person, then she should not accept them on her social media. Her social media is fully private and she has brought me up to speed on how other kids can isolate their social media accounts so that their parents cannot see it. There are special buttons on Facebook which can be selected and which enable the child to select his or her mother's account, which means that she is the only person who does not know that her child's Facebook account exists. This is a minefield. I am of the view that the age of consent does absolutely nothing to protect children in this regard.

The second part of the amendment seeks to alleviate some of the concerns regarding the lower age of digital consent. It relates to children being used as a sort of Trojan Horse in order for data companies to access the data of the adult relatives of the children who have given the children permission online. Both parts of the amendment are modelled on provisions in Spanish data protection law. We have drafted these in consultation with children's' rights advocates in order to find a comparable legislative provision that would also be compatible with EU law and the GDPR. The second part would ensure that the data companies would not be able to process data as it relates to the parents, guardians or family members of the child if those relevant adults did not consent to it, apart from where the data of a parent would be required in order to verify the age of the child. The general intention of the amendment is to ensure that while we may set the digital age of consent at the lower age of 13, there should still be oversight by the State, or self-regulation by data companies and processors, to ensure that children, regardless of age, are not using the Internet without any protections whatsoever. The amendment also seeks to ensure that data companies will have a responsibility to ensure high safety standards for children and that the burden of regulation and protection will not fall solely on parents.

I am tabling this amendment in the hope of being constructive and potentially finding a common ground for those who may disagree on the digital age of consent. I look forward to the Minister's response.