Banning mobile phones in England’s schools will not address the harms caused by tech platforms to children, according to leading internet safety campaigners.
Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, and Beeban Kidron, an influential figure in online regulation, said limiting phone use in schools would do nothing to make social media services safer.
On Monday the government outlined new guidance on mobile phone use in schools, referring to the capacity for handsets to cause distraction and disruption, as well as enable online bullying.
Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter killed herself in 2017 after viewing harmful content online, said the updated guidance on handsets in schools did not prevent children from being exposed to dangerous material on the phones themselves.
“The simple reality is that children will continue to be exposed to preventable risk day and night until we address the fundamental product safety failings of tech platforms that are dangerous by design,” he said.
“The best solution to protect young people from mental and physical harm is stronger and more ambitious online safety regulation.”
Russell, who is the chair of trustees at a charity set up in memory of his daughter, the Molly Rose Foundation, said there was an “urgent need” to commit to measures that would keep children safe. The Online Safety Act, which contains provisions to shelter children from harmful content such as pornography and the promotion of suicide and eating disorders, became law last year but is still in the process of being implemented.
Under the Department for Education plan, schools are offered a range of options for curbing mobile phones, including ordering phones to be kept at home, keeping them in lockers at the school, or being allowed to keep them provided they are not used or heard.
Announcing the new guidance, the DfE said allowing mobile phone use in schools could lead to online bullying, distraction and classroom disruption. The Parentkind charity said the guidance would help address a problem where children are addicted to harmful “electronic drugs”.
Kidron, a crossbench peer and architect of the children’s code, which regulates use of under-18s’ data, said what parents, children and teachers needed was the “robust application of the Online Safety Act”.
