Shocking revelations about extreme images on school tablets must lead to action

However, the news that some devices appear to be able to access extreme images, pornography and other sites that no child should ever see is deeply shocking, and all the more so because it was so eminently predictable.

The Scotsman has seen evidence that tablets issued by Glasgow City Council and Borders Council – and used by some 82,000 primary and secondary pupils – can easily access search engines that can act as gateways to harmful content. This was despite both councils telling us the search engines had been blocked.

‘No thought for the children’

In December last year, it was revealed Edinburgh pupils were able to access graphic images on their tablets, with parents complaining that children were showing the pictures to each other in class.

Father-of-two Harry Amies, co-founder of campaign group Unplug.Scot, said: “It's currently a wild west of the major tech companies falling over themselves to get their branded devices and platforms into children's hands, with no thought for the children being harmed in playgrounds and bedrooms by their unmodified adult products.”

The UK's 2023 Online Safety Act was supposed to safeguard our young people but only last month the Children’s Commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, warned that “violent pornography is easily accessible to children, exposure is often accidental and often via the most common social media sites, and it is impacting children’s behaviours and beliefs in deeply concerning ways”.

Despite this, rather than working with the authorities, some tech companies appear actively hostile to the Act’s provisions with claims it breaches their right to ‘free speech’.

Clearly, these firms should be doing much more to ensure children are not able to access websites promoting self-harm, suicide and other such horrors. However, until they rediscover a sense of morality, councils, schools – everyone – must take the duty to protect the children much more seriously.