Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Section 97 sets out the specific information and documentation to be provided by remote licensees when applying to the regulator. Remote licensees, by their nature, invoke certain technologies - hardware and software - to provide gambling activities and it is important the regulator is made aware of the full extent and nature of the technology to be used before granting the licence.

While there is a provision included that requires licensees to set out information relating to the location and type of technology hardware to be used, the provisions are less robust with respect to technology software to be used. As we have set out on a number of occasions throughout the Bill, it is software that is remaking the landscape of gambling activity given the share of gambling activity that now takes place online. This amendment would adjust the wording of the existing provision to ensure equal weight would be given to both the hardware and software used by a licensee when making an application to the regulator.

Amendment No. 179 shares a similar intention to amendment No. 178, seeking to expand on the obligations of licensees to provide information to the regulator about the types of technologies to be used in the provision of gambling activity with particular respect to new and emerging technologies. As we have stressed, it is software technology that is remaking the regulatory landscape. Once we feel like we are done regulating and legislating, it is likely that new technology will emerge and necessitate further revisions.

Technology has a habit of outpacing our ability to regulate and legislate and the prevalence of online gambling, particularly within the cohort of participants most susceptible to problem gambling, highlights this to a certain extent. We cannot rely on industry to voluntarily forewarn us of the challenges to come because it often has motives that are in conflict with regulators and sometimes even with the public interest. This amendment simply ensures licensees would be obliged to be forthcoming about the types of new and emerging technologies they are invoking in the provision of their activities when applying to the regulator for a licence.

Amendments Nos. 181 and 182 are simple amendments which also seek to insert new obligations on gambling licensees in terms of information and documentation to be provided when applying for licences. Amendment No. 181 seeks to impose a mandate on licensees to submit a data protection impact assessment. We have aired our concerns with respect to data protection, data privacy and microtargeting in the Bill. I will refrain from speaking at length on that again - the intention of this amendment is similar - other than to say it is important the regulator and licensees take seriously their obligations with regard to data protection and privacy, and the provisions of an impact assessment would assist both parties in this respect.

Amendment No. 182 separately seeks to impose an obligation on licensees to submit an algorithmic safety report which would include a statement detailing the measures it proposes to make to mitigate algorithmic harm. This is related to our concerns about data protection but, more acutely, how data is harnessed by gambling licensees and their third-party providers to keep people engaged with their services for longer periods of time, spending more money and doing so more frequently.

We tried to insert similar amendments to the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act and the Digital Services Act to place a responsibility on online service providers to set out statements regarding algorithms and their safety and how they intend to keep their service users safe from algorithmic harm. At the time we were eager to see recognition of the notion of algorithmic harm, the idea that it is not user-generated content that can create harm in online spaces but rather the practices of online services and platforms themselves. This idea of harm due to algorithms is recognised within the EU's Digital Services Act, which online service providers, including gambling licensees, are obliged to comply with, but it would be positive for it to have some acknowledgement of that role algorithms can play in inviting, maintaining and exacerbating gambling-related harms.