“Peers are to be allowed to use iPads and other mobile internet devices inside the House of Lords, in a rule change that edges them ahead of MPs in technological terms,” Christopher Williams reports for The Telegraph.
“The Lords Administration and Works Committee said in a new report that current restrictions are ‘incomplete, outdated and contradictory,'” Williams reports. “For a trial period of one year, it is proposed that peers should allowed to refer to handheld electronic devices including all tablets, smartphones and ebook readers, during debates, provided they are set to silent. Laptops are to remain outlawed.”
Williams reports, “Internet-enabled Lords will be restricted in what they are allowed to browse, however… [and] peers may do well to heed it. They received a cautionary lesson in public iPad use this week from the Italian politician Simeone Di Cagno Abbrescia, who was caught on camera in Parliament browsing an escort agency website. He claimed the incident was the result of ‘just curiosity,’ and inexperience using the device.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Welcome to the future, The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Elboe” for the heads up.]