Following on from last week’s alert about the potential role for the Online Safety Bill in tackling the thorny issue of search engine ad spoofing, it was announced yesterday (Thursday 29 July) that the Chair of the Joint Committee which will scrutinise the Bill will be Damian Collins, MP for Folkestone and Hythe. One of Damian’s previous roles was as Chair of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee, which led an Inquiry on Disinformation, or ‘fake news’, and the spread of inaccurate information on social media, which reported in 2019. Damian is therefore no stranger to getting major tech companies to accept responsibility for content on their platforms.
The Online Safety Bill is proposed to create a new duty of care for online platforms towards their users, requiring them to take action against both illegal and also legal but harmful content. The type of online harm the Bill is proposed to tackle includes romance fraud and the spread of content such as that relating to child sexual abuse, terrorist material and suicide content.
At present, it is expected that there will be several tabled Amendments to the Bill, including to tackle online scams such as search engine ad spoofing – where an individual searches for a legitimate business but is directed to a scam company. In the example of a road traffic accident, the scam company can place the individual in an expensive credit hire situation, including credit repair and expensive and unnecessary vehicle storage costs etc. The individual may never know that they had been dealing with scammers. These scams add a considerable layer of costs which ultimately affect all policy paying customers.
The Committee will report its findings to Government before 10 December 2021 and is asking the public for their views on whether the draft law will achieve its aim of making the UK ‘the safest place to be online’. The Committee are specifically seeking views on how the Bill compares to online safety legislation in other countries, and whether it represents a threat to freedom of expression. Views will be able to be submitted via the Committee’s website which can be found here. The call for evidence has a deadline of Thursday 16 September for submissions.
At Keoghs we are seeking to engage with Damian Collins and will explore a submission to the Joint Committee’s call for evidence.
If you’d like to get in contact to discuss this issue and the call for evidence in further detail please contact Natalie Larnder or Ruth Needham.
Natalie Larnder
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