To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what methodology was used to estimate the number of companies affected by the proposals in the Online Harms White Paper.
Answered on
13 May 2020
The estimate of the number of companies that will be in scope of the Online Harms framework is based on a sample of data from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The IDBR is a comprehensive list of UK businesses used by the government for statistical purposes.
The sample was designed to ensure that it was sufficiently large and had sufficient representation of organisations of different sizes in order for the results to be robust. For each organisation in the sample, we reviewed whether it offers activities that may fall within the scope of the regulation, and on that basis do not believe that more than 5% of UK businesses will be in scope. We are continuing to work to ensure that new regulation will be proportionate and risk-based.