My Lords, as I listen to the words echoing around the Chamber, I try to put myself in the shoes of parents or children who, in one way or another, have suffered as a result of exposure to things happening online. Essentially, the world that we are talking about has been allowed to grow like Topsy, largely unregulated, at a global level and at a furious pace, and that is still happening as we do this. The horses have not just bolted the stable; they are out of sight and across the ocean. We are talking about controlling and understanding an environment that is moving so quickly that, however fast we move, we will be behind it. Whatever mousetraps we put in place to try to protect children, we know there are going to be loopholes, not least because children individually are probably smarter than we are collectively at knowing how to get around well-meaning safeguards.
There are ways of testing what is happening. Certain organisations have used what they term avatars. Essentially, you create mythical profiles of children, which are clearly stated as being children, and effectively let them loose in the online world in various directions on various platforms and observe what happens. The tests that have been done on this—we will go into this in more detail on Thursday when we talk about safety by design—are pretty eye-watering. The speed with which these avatars, despite being openly stated as being profiles of children, are deluged by a variety of content that should be nowhere near children is dramatic and incredibly effective.
I put it to the Minister and the Bill team that one of the challenges for Ofcom will be not to be so far behind the curve that it is always trying to catch up. It is like being a surfer: if you are going to keep going then you have to keep on the front side of the wave. The minute you fall behind it, you are never going to catch up. I fear that, however well-intentioned so much of the Bill is, unless and until His Majesty’s Government and Ofcom recognise that we are probably already slightly behind the crest of the wave, whatever we try to do and whatever safeguards we put in place are not necessarily going to work.
One way we can try to make what we do more effective is the clever, forensic use of approaches such as avatars, not least because I suspect their efficacy will be dramatically increased by the advent and use of AI.