New Safer Phones Bill aims at “making social media less addictive” for young people

The question

How does the Safer Phones Bill intend to protect young people online?

The key takeaway

The Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill (the Safer Phones Bill) proposes to impose additional obligations on social media companies with the intention of further protecting teenagers and young adults who use social media applications. This could include an obligation requiring platforms to exclude young people from algorithms.

The background

Labour sponsor and MP for Whitehaven and Workington, Josh MacAlister introduced the Safer Phones Bill on Wednesday 16 October 2024 to the House of Commons. MacAlister said “The evidence is mounting that children doomscrolling for hours a day is causing widespread harm. We need the equivalent of the ‘seatbelt’ legislation for social media use for children”. The Safer Phones Bill has had backing from the Labour and Conservative parties which, as a Private Members Bill, increases its chances of succeeding in its passage through Parliament.

The Online Safety Act 2023 (the OSA) introduced extensive measures on in-scope services (including many social media platforms), with measures aimed at protecting children from content deemed “harmful” under the OSA such as content which promotes self-injury, pornographic content, “bullying content” and content depicting serious violence or injury. The OSA was passed last year and obligations on in-scope services are due to come into effect from mid-December 2024.

The Bill, rather than focusing on the type of content, aims to reduce the amount of time young people spend on their phones by limiting access to content generated by algorithms. Various measures are proposed in the Bill to seek to achieve this, including by increasing the age of “internet adulthood”, meaning the age at which children no longer require parental consent to increase the data allowance on their mobile phones, from 13 to 16. This would make it harder for teenagers under 16 to increase the data allowance on their mobile phones, with the intention of ultimately limiting under 16s use of social media. The Bill also proposes to give Ofcom further powers to prevent children from accessing allegedly addictive content and review how phones are advertised to younger audiences to ensure their wellbeing is taken into consideration.

The Bill also seeks to leg ally ban mobiles phones in schools entirely. However, a Government spokesperson said they were not intending to back that part of the Bill, adding that “the Online Safety Act will introduce strong safeguards for children, preventing them from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content…The vast majority of schools already handle the use of mobile phones effectively, including with bans. Legislating for an outright ban would simply remove the autonomy from school leaders who know their pupils and their communities best.”

The development

The Private Members’ Bill was presented to Parliament on Wednesday 16 October 2024 through the ballot procedure and the second reading is due to take place on Friday 7 March 2025.

Why is this important?

This is the latest piece of legislation which aims to regulate tech platforms. Those within scope of the Safer Phones Bill will want to keep an eye on its progression and think about how the proposed additional obligations can be complied with alongside and in combination with their existing duties in the ever-changing regulatory landscape.

Any practical tips?

Nothing immediate in respect of the Bill: the second reading is not until 7 March 2025. That said, it’s clear which way the general political wind is blowing in terms of children and social media, not least given the introduction in Australia of an outright ban on social media for children under 16 on 28 November 2024. France introduced legislation to block social media access for children under 15 without parental consent and Norway has pledged to follow the Australian ban. Meanwhile, the UK’s technology secretary, Peter Kyle, has said that a ban on social media for under 16s in the UK is “on the table”.

With everything pointing towards stricter controls for children on social media, it makes sense to start thinking carefully about the impact on businesses and how they might respond. Not forgetting of course that services which are in-scope of the OSA need to be aware that some obligations under that Act kick in from mid-December 2024. See our separate article in this Snapshot edition on Ofcom’s useful guidance on relevant OSA dates.

Winter 2024