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Byron Review

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Byron Review

The Byron Review, titled "Safer Children in a Digital World", was a report ordered in September 2007 by the then prime minister Gordon Brown and delivered on the 27 March 2008 to the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families. It was authored and overseen by Tanya Byron. The report focussed on the use of video games and the Internet (particularly social networking websites) by children, and discussed the use of classification and the role of parenting in policing these.

Key points of the review included:

The report was generally well received by parenting groups, the government and the media industry. The video games industry, however, raised concerns over how increased classification would be funded, with some concerned that the BBFC did not have the capacity for such an increased workload.

On the day following publication of the report, most UK newspapers had a story on their front page outlining the classification system proposed.[citation needed]

In June 2008 the government published "The Byron Review Action Plan". This document set out how the recommendations of the Byron Review would be implemented across government. In December 2009 the prime minister and the Children's Minister asked Tanya Byron to provide a progress review. Titled "Do we have Safer Children in a Digital World?", The Byron Progress Review was published in March 2010.

In May 2008 the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee held an inquiry into harmful content in video games and on the Internet. On 14 May 2008 Minister Vernon Coaker gave oral evidence to the committee explaining that the Prime Minister's Internet Taskforce would be concerned not just with illegal content on the Internet, but also with "harmful and inappropriate content as well ... which may not be illegal but which cause all of us concern".

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee's report was published on 31 July 2008 and contained various recommendations among which were:

In June 2008 Culture Secretary Andy Burnham suggested the government should have a role in ensuring that content on the Internet met the same standards as that on television as "the boundaries between the two media blur". Burnham also raised the idea of warnings being applied to certain content on websites such as YouTube to help people "better navigate the internet". He referred to the Byron Review, saying that he thought people felt a "sense of risk and uncertainty about this world they are roaming". Burnham told journalists that he had an "open mind" about whether there was a need for a new Communications Act before the next General Election, indicating that his own preference was for smaller pieces of legislation as needed.

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