Ministers must act more quickly to combat rapidly changing threats from technology such as deepfakes, the technology secretary said, as she warned of the risks women and girls face online.
Liz Kendall said on Monday that technology was developing at such a pace that it was outstripping the government’s ability to regulate it, and even suggested there could be regular annual reviews of regulations, as is the case with the budget.
The technology secretary spoke to The Guardian after hosting a roundtable with tech companies including Meta, Snapchat, Reddit, Match Group, Google, TikTok and Onlyfans, during which she urged them to do more to tackle online misogyny.
She said: “It took eight years for the (Online Safety) Act to come into force, and technology has developed so quickly it hasn’t kept pace. Every year MPs have a finance bill to address the budget. In a world where technology is developing so rapidly, we have to be prepared to look at this much more, much more quickly.”
“As a government and as a parliament, we cannot have a situation where we only legislate once every eight years to address some of these issues, and that is something I am very aware of.”
Kendall recently launched a consultation on a social media ban for under-16s, which is expected to be reported in the summer.
He said on Monday that the government would seek to pass new laws after that consultation, although he added that this could be done without allowing MPs the opportunity to amend them.
Pro-ban campaigners believe Keir Starmer is likely to support their cause, but are concerned ministers will implement a relatively weak ban which they will not have the chance to strengthen in parliament.
“They will have a vote in the House of Commons,” Kendall said, although he added: “It could be secondary.” Unlike government bills, secondary legislation does not give MPs time to amend it.
Kendall also recently announced that AI chatbots would come under the purview of the Online Safety Act so that companies could be penalized for content posted by both AI tools and humans.
This followed a controversy surrounding Elon Musk’s
Kendall said: “The public is right to put pressure on the government to say we want our children to be safe, as women, to remove these horrific images. Grok started spreading those horrific images, we stood up and stood our ground and said it’s against our values, it’s against the law and no one will intimidate us to protect women and girls, and then X acted.”
“I hope what we did with Grok shows how absolutely determined the prime minister and I are too.”
Children’s online safety will be debated in parliament on Wednesday, when MPs on the Commons science, innovation and technology committee hear from Australia’s eSafety commissioner and health campaigners and parent groups on whether under-16s should be banned from accessing social media.
