Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips has urged tech bosses to focus on creating safer devices ‘instead of innovations like driverless cars and trips to Mars’ to ensure children’s safety online
Labour will invest in child-safe smartphones if tech companies create them, a minister has said. The pledge came as the mum of murdered teen Brianna Ghey called for tougher social media controls in a touching ITV documentary.
Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips told the Mirror she is ready to embrace and encourage new tech to protect youngsters, including devices designed specifically for under-16s. Ms Phillips urged tech bosses to focus on creating safer devices “instead of innovations like driverless cars and trips to Mars”. And she spoke of her and other parents’ concern about the vile material kids are being exposed to.
She said: “If I were a big tech company, I’d be looking at parents’ fears about their daughters falling prey to [online abuse] and their sons potentially perpetrating it. In all my years in this particular area of work, I’ve never seen much innovation in the prevention space, and that needs to change.
“I have seen British technology that is able to stop child abuse images appearing on a phone, so these technologies do exist. Big tech companies love innovation in other spaces like driverless cars, but I’d rather see children safe online than own a driverless car.”
Ms Phillips also spoke of the threat posed by toxic masculinity and the rise of misogynists like Andrew Tate, in the wake of Netflix hit Adolescence. She said: “Whether it’s violence, misogyny, pornography, attitudes and glamorization of violence – I think for parents in the UK and elsewhere, [the show] has captured their imagination.”
In ITV’s Brianna: A Mother’s Story, broadcast last night, Esther Ghey called on ministers to introduce child-safe technology. Brianna, 16, who was transgender, was stabbed 28 times by Scarlet Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, both 15, in February 2023. The pair viewed extreme material online and plotted the attack on social media app Snapchat.