Legal minimum age for social media required, says Oireachtas committee

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht recommends the prohibition of any form of profiling or tracking children’s data. File photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA

A legal minimum age requirement for opening social media accounts should be part of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, an Oireachtas committee says.

A report by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht on the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill contains 26 recommendations including a legal requirement for children to be a certain age to access specified services.

The committee has also recommended a levy on streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime be introduced to fund independent Irish productions.

The move has been welcomed by Screen Producers Ireland, who say it could raise a minimum of €23m in additional funding for the creation of original Irish content. The bill will also see the media regulator for the first time overseeing streaming services. 

The committee report recommends that the bill have provision for "the means of collecting the levy, the party responsible for the collection of the levy, the percentage value of the levy, and the providers liable to pay the levy".

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Provision should be made for ring-fencing the levy income for use on Irish and European projects, with independent production companies having exclusive rights to bid for funding, the report says.

As reported by the Irish Examinerlast week, the bill should also include a ban on advertising junk food, alcohol, high fat/salt/sugar foods, and gambling to children.

"The committee recommends a moratorium on advertising to children online, including, at the very minimum, advertisements of junk food, alcohol, high fat/salt/sugar (HFSS) foods, and gambling," said the report.

"The committee recommends the prohibition of any form of profiling or tracking children’s data."

The bill will set up the media commission, which has the potential to be one of the most powerful regulators in the State as it will oversee all media, including the tech companies. The report recommends that the media commission and the online safety commissioner should be "satisfactorily resourced" and that any provision for their removal by a minister should be removed from the bill.

"The committee recommends that, within the legislative package, no possible source of infringement of independence should be placed upon the media commission or upon the online safety commissioner.

As reported by the Irish Examiner last week, the bill should also include a ban on advertising junk food, alcohol, high fat/salt/sugar foods, and gambling to children.

"The committee recommends that there is a pluralistic and diverse-oriented approach taken during the legislative process for the present bill and during the regular work of the media commission and the online safety commissioner, with full participation sought from all sections of Irish society.

"The committee recommends that highly precise detail is given as to the roles and responsibilities of the media commission and of the online safety commissioner."

Launching the report, Deputy Niamh Smyth, Cathaoirleach of the Committee, said: “The Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill is a piece of legislation with immense scope that, when enacted, will place Ireland among the first countries in the world to provide systemic regulation of online platforms. The Committee has engaged in an extensive and robust pre-legislative scrutiny process to reflect the vast importance of the Bill, and to more fully consider the wide-ranging impacts – both negative and positive – of its contents."