Select committee: Petitions Committee
Recommendation 26
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Published 1 Feb 2022
Paragraph 102
Petitions Committee Tackling Online Abuse All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Where there is a need to trace and investigate accounts posting potentially illegal content, this is usually technically possible even if the account is publicly anonymous. However, the police’s ability to trace accounts posting such content at scale is constrained by a lack of resources. This underlines the need for additional law enforcement resourcing as we call for in our recommendations on online abuse and the criminal law. The mixed evidence we heard about social media platforms’ cooperation with police requests for such information makes it welcome that the Government has previously indicated it is looking into the powers available to the police to identify users and tackle illegal anonymous abuse online. We recommend that the Government publishes the conclusions of its work to review whether current police powers are sufficient to tackle illegal anonymous abuse online, and that it sets out a timetable for any changes it believes are necessary as a result.
From: Petitions Committee, Second Report - Tackling online abuse (HC 766), paragraph 102, 1 February 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 1 April 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and agrees with a number of its recommendations, while taking a different approach to others, including a statutory consultation duty, legal but harmful content on smaller platforms and a single foundational duty.
- On Recommendation 4, it agrees that hate crime and Violence against Women and Girls offences should be listed as priority illegal offences on the face of the Bill, a change announced on 5 February.
- On Recommendation 3, it does not think a statutory duty to consult civil society organisations is "necessary", citing the existing consultation provisions in the draft Bill.
- On Recommendation 7, it does not think it "appropriate" to require platforms to remove or interfere with legal content, so the duties on legal but harmful content apply to Category 1 services.
- On Recommendations 10 and 11, it is "carefully considering" the Law Commission's hate crime report and will "shortly publish" a new hate crime strategy, without stating a date.