Online Safety

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is today announcing an inquiry into Online Safety.

Despite technological innovation and an increase in public understanding of dangers, the online world continues to pose hazards — from images of child abuse to trolling. These dangers are the correlation of the immense benefits provided by unimpeded communication and free speech, so any attempts to mitigate harms have to be proportionate and, where possible, avoid disadvantageous consequences.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has decided to investigate a number of aspects of online safety that are currently raising concerns, in particular:

• How best to protect minors from accessing adult content;
• Filtering out extremist material, including images of child abuse and material intended to promote terrorism or other acts of violence;
• Preventing abusive or threatening comments on social media.

The Committee invites written evidence from those who wish to contribute to the inquiry.

How to respond
As part of a scheme to encourage paperless working and maximise efficiency, the Committee is piloting a new web portal for online submissions of written evidence. Written submissions should therefore be sent via the "Online Safety" inquiry page of our website. The portal will be open for submissions from Tuesday 27 August. Submissions should be received by Monday 30 September 2013.