The report, from the House of Lords Communications Committee, wants an authority that can keep pace with technology. Essentially, it wants a digital super-regulator to not only oversee the dozen, or so, bodies that currently monitor the internet but that replaces a system that the report deemed was ‘clearly failing’.
Big tech companies are accused of failing to tackle issues, such as self-harm, and the report urges Ofcom’s remit should be extended to include a responsibility for enforcing a duty of care on tech companies.
Hopefully, this report will ensure that regulators are more proactive and more willing to intervene, where necessary, against tech companies that are gaining ever more control of technologies that are having a growing impact on people’s lives.
In the wake of several high profile data and privacy breaches, self-regulation has evidently failed and reforms are urgently needed.
