When the Government first announced plans to regulate online discussion platforms I wondered whether small organisations would be able to outsource the compliance burden to a provider better equipped to deliver rapid and effective response. Clause 180(2) of the Online Safety Bill suggests the answer is yes: The provider of a user-to-user service is to […]
Tag: Prevent Duty
Duty on tertiary education organisations introduced by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. The duty is to “have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism” (s.26(1)). That’s it: you’d be amazed how much opinion, guidance and process has flowed from those 14 words…
[21/6: Added more examples of public engagement] [22/3: Updated analysis of why read-only access fits within the para 8 exemption] The Government has now published its Online Safety Bill: the text that will be debated, and no doubt amended, in Parliament. Compared to last summer’s draft, this is somewhat clearer on whether platforms operated by […]
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Draft Online Safety Bill
The Government’s Online Safety Bill proposes to impose duties on “user-to-user services” to deal with harmful (including both lawful and unlawful) content and to protect free speech while doing so. Unlike most operators of on-line discussion platforms, educational institutions already have legal duties in both areas: through legislation on safeguarding, preventing radicalisation, and free speech. […]
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Online Harms White Paper
Tertiary educational institutions have a very specific role in promoting free speech, whether verbal, in writing or on-line. This is set out in general in the Education (No.2) Act 1986, with specific limitations – monitored by the sector regulators – to manage the risk of radicalisation in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 and, for […]
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Online Harms White Paper
The Government’s new White Paper on Online Harms is strikingly wide in both the range of harms identified, and the range of entities asked to play a part in reducing them. The White Paper envisages that harmful content could be spread through any online facility that allows individual users to share content, to find content […]
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Prevent – updated HEFCE guidance
On the recent trial run of our new course on Filtering and Monitoring we invited students to discuss the Home Office requirement to “consider the use of filters as part of their overall strategy to prevent people being drawn into terrorism“. HEFCE’s recent update of their monitoring framework for Higher Education providers in England asks […]
Roughly what I said in my Digifest presentation yesterday Since the Prevent duty, to help those at risk of radicalisation, was applied to universities and colleges there has been a lot of discussion of what role technology can play. The first thing to note is that, although there is a section on “IT Policies” in […]
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HEFCE monitoring framework for Prevent
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), as the body given responsibility by the Home Office for monitoring compliance with the Prevent duty in the higher education sector in England, has now announced how it will perform this responsibility. Full details can be found at the links to the HEFCE website below: the following […]
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Prevent Duty for FE/HE now in force
[Updated to include UCISA Model Regulations] After short debates in the Houses of Commons and Lords the legal duties on universities and colleges to address risks of radicalisation came into force on 18th September. The Government’s guidance is unchanged from the drafts published in July. In last week’s debates the Government again stressed that measures […]
With Parliament now on its summer break, the legal position under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 is unlikely to change till September. That makes this a good time for HE and FE providers in England, Wales and Scotland (the duty doesn’t cover Northern Ireland – see s51(1)) to review the guidance that has been […]