The new Safer Phones Bill proposed by a Labour MP wants to force social media companies to make content less addictive for under-16s by, in part, raising the age of “internet adulthood” from 13 to 16.
The proposed legislation is a private member’s bill introduced by former teacher and Labour MP Josh MacAlister and aims to help stop young people from being damaged by social media and mobile phone content.
If successful, the bill would ban social media account creation for children aged 13-16 without parental consent as well as banning phones in school.
The bill, introduced on Tuesday, has backing from both Labour and Conservative MPs, alongside children’s charities and education unions. It will be discussed by ministers next week.
Great interview with @JoshMacAlister on @BBCr4today on his Bill on smartphone use among young people.
Given the impact of smartphone use and addiction on the mental health of children and young people and the concerns from parents, this is a really timely debate.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) October 15, 2024
MacAlister writes: “The amount of time these addictive devices and apps take away from real life play and interactions is a major issue for parents, young people, teachers and society. And we know the impact is more acute for vulnerable children.
“This bill aims to make smartphones less addictive for children and empower families and teachers to cut down on children’s daily smartphone screen time.”
What is ‘internet adulthood’ and why is it important?
Raising the age of “internet adulthood” would require parental consent to use apps such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
This would mean that social media companies cannot get data consent from children without parental permission, so that they can’t use data to push addictive content to children.
Social media sites usually use data such as user behaviour patterns, preferences and engagement metrics to “feed” content to users so that they stay online for longer.
By changing the age of internet adulthood, social media companies would no longer be able to do this to children aged 13 to 15, likely cutting the appeal of social media and the hours spent on it.
What would the bill change?
The Safer Phones Bill would raise the age of internet adulthood from 13 to 16, and would give Ofcom a new mandate to protect children from apps designed to be addictive.
Ofcom would have new powers to require tech companies to verify the ages of users and prevent children being exposed to apps which are “addictive by design”. The act would also have a legal requirement that all schools should be mobile-free zones.
The bill would also commit the government to reviewing further regulation if needed of the design, supply and use of phones by children aged under 18.
Will it work?
Yahoo News spoke to legal and privacy experts who warned that while the goals of the bill are admirable, it may be difficult to make it work.
The problem is that it’s very easy for determined youngsters to circumvent parental monitoring and technological barriers, warns security expert Mayur Upadhyaya, CEO at APIContext.
Upadhyaya told Yahoo News: “While the intent is to shield children from online risks, implementing these restrictions effectively remains a challenge. The inconsistency of parental enforcement coupled with the use of VPNs or fake accounts makes such regulations difficult to manage without more robust identity verification.”
Meanwhile, Julian Hayes, partner at BCL Solicitors, warns that if sites are required to use “age gating” and age verification, that introduces other issues.
“Requiring verifiable ID to access websites or apps raises significant privacy and freedom of speech issues, and risks excluding adults who do not themselves have the requisite ID,” Hayes said.
The bill also risks robbing young people of important skills, he added.
“Preventing young people from accessing websites and apps which will likely be a feature of their adult lives creates an artificially sanitised online sphere which sharply contrasts with the ‘real’ digital world they may choose to inhabit once they reach the ‘age of digital majority’.
“Without any prior exposure to this online environment, older teenagers’ lack of experience and critical engagement with the virtual world risks making them more vulnerable to online harms.”
