Political Monitor 01/05/2020

1 May 2020

COVID-19

Ofcom publish updated Annual Plan

Ofcom have published an updated Annual Plan of Works in light of Covid-19. This reiterates the announcements made at the end of last month to suspend all existing consultation deadlines and information requests, and put on hold new consultations, decisions and information requests. It also highlights their “pragmatic approach to enforcement” during this time, including temporarily relaxing some requirements (e.g. on automatic compensation and quality of service regulation), and taking a pragmatic approach to the enforcement of our rules on end-of-contract notifications.

Ofcom state that they will publish an updated plan in September and have delayed several statements to later in the financial year. The timeline for a consultation on the new gaining provider led switching process has been pushed back to Q2, whilst Ofcom states they are discussing the implementation of the EECC with Government and expect to publish a statement in the summer.

DCMS Committee hear evidence on online harms and disinformation

The DCMS Select Committee heard evidence on online harms and disinformation. MPs heard from:

• Richard Earley, UK Public Policy Manager, Facebook
• Alina Dimofte, Public Policy and Government Relations Manager, Google
• Katy Minshall, UK Head of Government, Public Policy and Philanthropy, Twitter

On the wider issue of a regulation, Earley was asked whether he supported the establishment of a legal duty of care for Facebook in what it publishes on its platforms to which he answered that further regulation would be helpful. On the specific proposal, he said it depended on “how it was framed”.

When asked on conspiracy theory posts linking 5G and Covid-19, Earley noted that there were different approaches to how Facebook dealt with general misinformation and misinformation that caused “real world harm”. He also noted that early systems were in place to try and stop users repeatedly making accounts from the same IP address as they are removed.

On child safety more specifically, the committee asked about concerns raised by the NSPCC on expected increases in child abuse during the crisis and a potential a lack of moderators at Facebook due to staff shortages. On what plans had been made to redeploy people towards high priority tasks such as moderating, Earley said that while content reviewers had been sent home for their safety, responsibility for the most explicit violations had been shifted to full time employees and the majority of volunteer content reviews were also allowed to work from home. In the last few weeks, he added that review centres had started to reopen and further automated measures for flagging and removing content had been introduced.

Parliamentary Question on network resilience

Shadow Digital Minister Chi Onwurah MP asked her counterpart what the effect of Covid-19 has been on UK network resilience. Matt Warman MP noted that the network remains “stable” and have “sufficient capacity” for home-working and remote learning, and that this continued to be monitored.

Parliamentary question on online safety

Alex Stafford MP asked whether the Home Secretary has made an assessment of the capacity of technology firms to provide adequate moderation processes for identifying and tackling online child abuse during the covid-19 outbreak. Minister Victoria Atkins said that Government is working closely with technology companies, NGOs, law enforcement and other Governments to understand the impact of COVID on technology companies’ ability to identify and combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. She added that from initial conversations, this issue remains a priority for companies despite reduced capacity.

Cyber security

Defence sub-Committee inquiry on the Security of 5G

The Defence sub-Committee heard its first oral evidence session as part of its ongoing inquiry around the UK’s 5G supply chains, with witnesses from Oxford Information Labs and C5 Capital. The session included MPs from the Foreign Affairs Committee and touched on both the rollout timescale and security implications. Andre Pienaar of C5 Capital noted the “very significant national security and geopolitical implications” and emphasised the need for good cyber security throughout the economy. He added that Huawei’s 35% network access allocation reflected the reality that they had the “largest market share in telecommunications equipment in the UK”, and that removing them completely would require other players to come into the market.

Other points raised during the session included:

• A “rip and replace” of Huawei infrastructure in the UK would be both “costly” and “take a long time” which could have their own economic and social implications.
• The relationships between other players including Nokia and Ericsson and China, both of whom have business in China, but are not compelled by the Chinese Government to act in the same way Chinese Governments can be.
•  The Chinese investment in R&D puts Huawei in a strong position in terms of innovation.
• The potential for interoperable equipment avoiding “vendor lock in”.