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Ministers endorse iRights campaign allowing teenagers to delete online past

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By John Glenday, Reporter

July 28, 2015 | 1 min read

Government ministers are throwing their weight behind the ’iRights campaign’ backed by industry and charities which would give anyone over the age of 18 the right to amend or delete embarrassing digital content from their past.

paris Brown, Twitter, Facebook

This has seen ministers at the department for culture, media and sport publicly endorse a cross-party campaign that would force social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter to adopt the new standard voluntarily.

There are currently no plans to introduce a law obligating technology companies to comply.

A report published on behalf of the campaign noted: “It is essential that there is an easily accessible route for children and young people to resolve disputes or correct misinformation that does not require recourse to the courts.”

It follows a number of recent high profile cases in which the online history of young people has come back to haunt them, notably Paris Brown, Britain’s first youth and police crime commissioner, who came unstuck in 2013 when embarrassing tweets documenting her sex life and drug-taking came to light.

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