Margot James, the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, has admitted to “deep concerns” about some of the ways in which  the ad industry is harnessing technology, in the wake of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, and hinted at legislation to curb the power of internet companies. Speaking at Advertising Week Europe today, she said:

“There’s a lot of change in this industry, in particular the ad industry and how it is harnessing technology, so I don’t want to do anything to dampen that or disincentivise it, but there are deep concerns…We are a world leader in terms of communications, connectivity and use of the internet, and I want it to stay that way. But also, I do recognise that there are elements of the social media platforms – the Cambridge Analytica issue exemplifies what we are talking about – that cannot go unchecked and unanswered, the harms are too great.”

Asked about the possibility of legislation being enacted to bring the online world into line with the offline, she said:

“I think we start from the basis that what is illegal offline should be illegal online. There should not be this artificial distinction, but there is a perception that the rule of law is harder to enforce online than it is online, which puts newspapers at a disadvantage when you are competing for people’s consumption of news with the purely online sources, so we want to get to a point where the law is enforceable in the online environment in the same way as it is in the offline environment, and we are some way from that.

“We have been working with voluntary codes of practice and we have been successful in some areas like terrorism… great progress been made in terms of security and terrorism and child abuse; these areas have been greatly improved in terms of what the online environment permitted in the past compared to what it permits now.” But she added: “There is increasing scepticism whether we will get to where we agree we need to be on a voluntary basis.” She also said she believes it has to be as easy for individuals and organisations to enforce their rights against social media platforms as it is with the traditional press, adding “we are not there yet.”

Asked if the Government could take whatever measures it deems necessary while still making the UK a great place for technology companies to thrive, she said the two were not mutually exclusive.

“There are loads of apps and developers of new tech startups that are the very opposite in terms of their ethos to the sort of things we have been talking about and worrying about,” she said. “I had a breakfast meeting this morning with 20 fairly young tech companies. One of them is a fashion app that enables the user to click on a garment of clothing and instantly there will be recognition of the manufacturer’s social, environmental and sustainable footprint.

“A vast amount of tech companies have an ethical framework within which they are trying to build their business, so I do not see clamping down on harm on the internet as a disincentive to growing tech companies.”