ICO News

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and Ofcom have set out how we will work together to ensure coherence between the data protection and the new online safety regimes.

Our joint statement builds on our existing cooperative approach to regulation - and on our close working relationship established as co-founders of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum.

In anticipation of Ofcom taking on new duties in 2023 under the Online Safety Bill, the statement sets out our shared regulatory aims. We want:

• people who use online services to have confidence that their safety and privacy will be upheld and that we will take prompt and effective action when providers fail in their obligations; and

• providers of online services of all sizes to comply with their obligations and to continue to innovate and grow, supported by regulatory clarity and free from undue burden.

To achieve this, the ICO and Ofcom will work closely together to achieve maximum alignment and consistency between the data protection and online safety regimes. We will:

• maximise coherence by ensuring our policies are consistent with each other's regulatory requirements -- and consult closely when preparing codes and guidance. We will seek solutions that enhance users' safety and preserve their privacy. Where there are tensions between privacy and safety objectives, we will provide clarity on how compliance can be achieved with both regimes; and

• promote compliance by setting clear expectations for industry on what they must do to meet both their online safety and data protection requirements. That includes particular support through the transition for small and emerging firms to help them thrive and grow. We will take action against services that don't meet their obligations, sharing information and intelligence as appropriate and coordinating approaches to enforcement.

The UK's data protection censors at the Information Commissioner's Office ICO have generated a disgracefully onerous red tape nightmare called the Age Appropriate Design Code that requires any internet service that provides any sort of grown up content to evaluate the age of all users so that under 18s can be protected from handing over sensitive ID data. Of course the age checking usually requires all users to hand over lots of sensitive and dangerous ID data to any website that asks.

Now the ICO has decided to make these requirements of porn sites given that they are often accessed by under 18s. ICO writes:

Next steps

We will continue to evolve our approach, listening to others to ensure the code is having the maximum impact.

For example, we have seen an increasing amount of research (from the NSPCC, 5Rights, Microsoft and British Board of Film Classification), that children are likely to be accessing adult-only services and that these pose data protection harms, with children losing control of their data or being manipulated to give more data, in addition to content harms. We have therefore revised our position to clarify that adult-only services are in scope of the Children's code if they are likely to be accessed by children.

As well as engaging with adult-only services directly to ensure they conform with the code, we will also be working closely with Ofcom and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to establish how the code works in practice in relation to adult-only services and what they should expect. This work is continuing to drive the improvements necessary to provide a better internet for children.

Internet censors of the Information Commissioner's Office has been called on to implement a full-scale probe into how the online betting industry is exploiting new technology to profile and target gamblers.

The move follows a complaint by the campiagn group Clean Up Gambling. It alleges that Sky Bet and its partners are creating detailed behavioural profiles of customers and sharing thousands of data points with dozens of third parties.

Clean Up Gambling alleges that one advertising partner, Signal, owned by TransUnion, has a dossier of 186 attributes for an individual, including their propensity to gamble, their favourite games and their susceptibility to specific types of marketing.

TransUnion said it assists gambling companies in preventing fraud, confirming age and identity, checking affordability and protecting vulnerable customers, to support responsible gambling.