My Lords, we already had a long debate on this subject earlier in Committee. In the interim, many noble Lords associated with these amendments have had conversations with the Government, which I hope will bear some fruit before Report. Today, I want to reiterate a few points that I hope are clarifying to the Committee and the department. In the interests of everyone’s evening plans, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, wish to associate themselves with these remarks so that they represent us in our entirety.
For many years, we thought age verification was a gold standard, primarily because it involved a specific government-issued piece of information such as a passport. By the same token, we thought age estimation was a lesser beast, given that it is an estimate by its very nature and that the sector primarily relied on self-declarations with very few checks and balances. In recent years, many approaches to age checking have flourished. Some companies provide age assurance tokens based on facial recognition; others use multiple signals of behaviour, friendship group, parental controls and how you move your body in gameplay; and, only yesterday, I saw the very impressive on-device privacy-preserving age-verification system that Apple rolled out in the US two weeks ago. All of these approaches, used individually and cumulatively, have a place in the age-checking ecosystem, and all will become more seamless over time. But we must ensure that, when they are used, they are adequate for the task they are performing and are quality controlled so that they do not share information about a child, are secure and are effective.
That is why, at the heart of the package of measures put forward in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Bethell, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, are two concepts. First, the method of measuring age should be tech neutral so that all roads can be used. Secondly, there must be robust mechanism of measurement of effectiveness so that only effective systems can be used in high-risk situations, particularly those of primary priority harms such as self-harm and pornography, and that such a measurement will be determined by Ofcom, not industry.
From my work over the last decade and from recent discussion with industry, I am certain that any regime of age assurance must be measurable and hold to certain principles. We cannot create a situation where children’s data is loosely held and liberally shared; we cannot have a system that discriminates against, or does not have automatic appeal mechanisms for, children of colour or those who are 17 or 19, who are at most likelihood of error. Systems should aim to be interoperable and private, not leave traces as children go from one service to another.
Each of the principles of our age-verification package set out in the schedule are of crucial importance. I hope that the Government will see the sense in that because, without them, this age checking will not be trusted. Equally, I urge the Committee to embrace the duality of age verification and estimation that the Government have put forward, because, if a child uses an older sibling’s form of verification and a company understands through the child’s behaviour that they are indeed a child, then we do not want to set up a perverse situation in which the verification is considered of a higher order and they cannot take action based on estimation; ditto, if estimation in gameplay is more accurate than tokens that verify whether someone is over or under 18, it may well be that estimation gives greater assurance that the company will treat the child according to their age.
I hope and believe that, in his response, the Minister will confirm that definitions of age assurance and age estimation will be on the face of the Bill. I also urge him to make a generous promise to accept the full gamut of our concerns about age checking and bring forward amendments in his name on Report that reflect them in full. I beg to move.