Article by Pippa Crerar for the Daily Mirror - published 31 August 2021
Social media companies have been urged to voluntarily impose age checks on their sites to stop children from being exposed to harmful material.
Children's Commissioner for England Rachel de Souza is meeting tech bosses this week to challenge them to help keep children safe by setting up "age gates" to view their sites.
She has warned that sites which fail to stop children accessing porn or other unsuitable material may be legally forced to introduce age verification.
Senior MPs are already urging ministers to impose mandatory age checks to help keep children safe online.
Many of the biggest companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, require their users to be at least 13 but the minimum age requirement is widely flouted with many young children simply lie about their age.
The Children's Commissioner's office estimates that 60% of 11 to 13-year-olds have stumbled across porn on social media.
Dame Rachel told the BBC's Today programme: "There's a lot that can be done voluntarily. When you do something by the law it takes time. I want those social media companies taking responsibility now".
She added: "Much as you need to prove your age to buy cigarettes or alcohol, it should be exactly the same in the online world."
She has also proposed three alternative legislative measures for the Government to consider if tech companies are unable to effectively fix the problem of children seeing adult content online - but legal changes will take longer to enact.
Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and sport Jo Stevens said “For years we have challenged the tech companies to improve their age verification systems which they themselves accept, simply don’t work.
"We need stronger measures to protect children online. The evidence children are being damaged by accessing harmful content is overwhelming but for years the government has ignored the problem, hoping it would go away.
"The draft Online Safety Bill does nothing to deal with this issue again reinforcing the view that the government can’t or won’t confront the big tech platforms and put effective regulation in place.”
Meanwhile, Tory MPs said that the Government’s plans for the Online Safety Bill were too “woolly” and should be toughened up. Social media firms are only expected to use tools that “might” include age verification or age assurance.
The regulator Ofcom will only be able to “recommend” that companies check how old users might be.
Damian Collins, who is chairing a joint committee scrutinising the bill, told The Times: “At the moment we only have measures that are based on self-declaration. Young children can be exposed to extreme content without any checks.
"My concern is that when you look at incidents of self-harm and depression in young people, these problems have all got worse. We need to look at the role robust age-verification can play.”
Julian Knight, culture select committee chairman, added: “The current wording is very woolly.
"I don’t think it’s going to get through the House unless it mandates age verification.”