Queen's Speech December 2019

Online Harms Bill

Online Harms

“My ministers will develop legislation to improve internet safety for all.”

• Britain is leading the world in developing a comprehensive regulatory regime to keep people safe online, protect children and other vulnerable users and ensure that there are no safe spaces for terrorists online.
• The April 2019 Online Harms White Paper set out the Government’s plan for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. The Government will continue work to develop this legislation, alongside ensuring that the UK remains one of the best places in the world for technology companies to operate.
• The proposals, as set out in the White Paper were:
  • A new duty of care on companies towards their users, with an independent regulator to oversee this framework.
  • The Government want to keep people safe online, but we want to do this in a proportionate way, ensuring that freedom of expression is upheld and promoted online, and that the value of a free and independent press is preserved.
  • The Government is seeking to do this by ensuring that companies have the right processes and systems in place to fulfil their obligations, rather than penalising them for individual instances of unacceptable content.

Next steps:

• The public consultation on this has closed and the Government is analysing the responses and considering the issues raised. The Government is working closely with a variety of stakeholders, including technology companies and civil society groups, to understand their views.
• The Government will prepare legislation to implement the final policy in response to the consultation.
• Ahead of this legislation, the Government will publish interim codes of practice on tackling the use of the internet by terrorists and those engaged in child sexual abuse and exploitation. This will ensure companies take action now to tackle content that threatens our national security and the physical safety of children.
• The Government will publish a media literacy strategy to empower users to stay safe online.
• The Government will help start-ups and businesses to embed safety from the earliest stages of developing or updating their products and services, by publishing a Safety by Design framework.
• The Government will carry out a review of the Gambling Act, with a particular focus on tackling issues around online loot boxes and credit card misuse.

Key facts

• There is a growing threat presented from online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. In 2018, there were over 18.4 million referrals of child sexual abuse material by US tech companies to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Of those, there were 113,948 UK related referrals, up from 82,109 in 2017.
• Terrorists also continue to use online services to spread their vile propaganda and mobilise support. All five terrorist attacks in the UK during 2017 had an online element. There is majority support among adult internet users for increased regulation of social media (70 per cent), video sharing (64 per cent) and Instant Messaging services (61 per cent).
• What the Government has done so far:
  • The joint DCMS-Home Office Online Harms White Paper was published in April 2019. The Government also published the Social Media Code of Practice, setting out the actions that social media platforms should take to prevent bullying, insulting, intimidating and humiliating behaviours on their sites.
  • In November 2018 the Government established a new UK Council for Internet Safety. This expanded the scope of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, and was guided by the Government’s Internet Safety Strategy.
  • The UK has been championing international action on online safety. The Prime Minister used his speech at the United Nations General Assembly to champion the UK’s work on online safety.

Espionage Bill and Official Secrets Act

Espionage legislation

The purpose of the legislation is to:

• Provide the security services and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to disrupt Hostile State Activity.

The main benefits of the legislation would be:

• Strengthening our response to reduce the threat posed by Hostile State Activity in the UK.
• Making the UK a harder environment for adversaries to operate in.
• Ensuring the security services and law enforcement agencies continue to have the necessary powers to meet current and evolving threats to the UK, both domestically and overseas from Hostile State Activity.

The main elements of the legislation are:

• Modernising existing offences, to deal more effectively with the espionage threat.
• Creating new offences, to criminalise other harmful activity conducted by, and on behalf of states.

Territorial extent and application

• The legislation’s provisions would extend and apply to the whole of the UK. National security and defence policy are reserved matters.
• The Government would look to apply certain offences extraterritorially in order to protect our assets overseas and protect the UK mainland against actors operating overseas.

Key facts

• This work is delivering on a commitment made by the former Prime Minister in the wake of the Salisbury attack, and would bring together new and modernised powers, giving our security services the legal authority they need to tackle the evolving hostile state threat now and in the future.
• As part of this, the Government is considering whether to follow allies in adopting a form of foreign agent registration, updating the Official Secrets Acts for the 21st century, as well as the case for updating treason laws.
• The Law Commission have been commissioned by the Government to review the Official Secrets Acts. The Official Secrets Acts are the only pieces of UK legislation that currently exist to specifically address Hostile State Activity such as espionage, sabotage and subversion, other than the ports stop power we included in the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. The Government will reflect on their final recommendations when published.
• The Government is also considering like-minded international partners’ legislation, to see whether the UK would benefit from adopting something similar. This includes the US and Australia.