Liz Kendall<\/a>, said she was \u201cappalled\u201d by the fact that John Edwards was preparing to serve legal papers on one of the \u201cincredibly brave\u201d women at the ICO who had raised concerns about his behaviour. Edwards resigned from his post as the UK\u2019s data regulator in June after an independent investigation.<\/p>\nKendall told the science, innovation and technology select committee on Wednesday she had seen the \u201cvulgar and highly sexualised language that was used in [Edwards\u2019] interactions with his staff\u201d.<\/p>\n
She previously said several women had told the investigator they felt \u201coffended, shocked and uncomfortable\u201d after interactions with Edwards. The chair of the select committee, Chi Onwurah, called it a \u201cvery disturbing incident\u201d.<\/p>\n
The ICO is the UK\u2019s independent regulator for data protection and information rights with responsibility for policing freedom of information, electronic marketing and data security. It said Edwards\u2019 conduct was \u201cunacceptable\u201d and fell well short of \u201cthe safe, respectful working environment\u201d all staff deserve.<\/p>\n
Kendall said of the woman Edwards is said to be taking legal action against: \u201cBy reporting her concerns, she supported the independent investigation that upheld multiple allegations made against him. And I have reached out, as best I can, and said they need to know that they will always be listened to without being put at personal risk. Quite frankly, I\u2019m appalled by that behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ICO said it could not comment for legal reasons.<\/p>\n
Kendall also announced an independent review into the culture, accountability and governance of the ICO and said she would soon announce a majority-women board of non-executive directors. She said she was \u201cextremely concerned that [Edwards] continues to describe these incidents as misplaced humour, including on his social media post announcing his resignation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Edwards said on LinkedIn that he \u201caccepted that there have been occasions where I exercised poor judgement and made attempts at humour that were inappropriate and caused offence.\u201d Announcing his resignation, the ICO said: \u201cWe do not accept sexual harassment, bullying or discrimination in any form.\u201d Edwards was approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Kendall said she will next week announce details of social media curfews for 16- and 17-year-olds starting at midnight and ending at 6am which are expected to come into force in early 2027, after the wider social media ban for under-16s. The measures are expected to require social media companies to have the curfews on by default for users they understand to be 16 or 17.<\/p>\n
Further measures aimed at protecting children from the harms of social media could also include a requirement for companies to set breaks in infinite scrolling mechanisms as a default on apps for 16- and 17-year-olds.<\/p>\n
Kendall conceded that some children will circumvent government measures to restrict social media. \u201cThere will be kids on those sites,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know from Australia, when they brought a ban in, the kids will try and get round it and succeed \u2026 For me, it is probably even more about future generations that we\u2019re putting the ban in place to change social norms and cultural expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kendall also predicted that the next big issue for the government, possibly under an Andy Burnham administration, will be tackling disinformation on social media and messaging services, exemplified the spread of online disinformation about the knife attack in Belfast that triggered violence and anti-immigration protests.<\/p>\n
She said she asked the Ofcom chair, Ian Cheshire, to conduct an urgent review of the media regulator\u2019s \u201ccapabilities, experience, skill, priorities, focus, to see whether what they have in place is fit for purpose\u201d. She said Ofcom would report back in the autumn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK information commissioner who resigned over sexual harassment and bullying claims is understood to be taking legal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}