Pope Francis has called on tech giants to prevent children from being able to access porn online so easily.

Speaking at the Promoting Digital Child Dignity conference in the Vatican recently, he called for action to be taken on kids’ exposure to porn sites online.

He said: “There is a need to ensure that investors and managers remain accountable, so that the good of minors and society is not sacrificed to profit.

“For the sake of advancing the development of the internet and its many benefits, companies that provide services have long considered themselves mere suppliers of technological platforms, neither legally nor morally responsible for the way they are used.”

He continued: “It is now clear that they cannot consider themselves completely unaccountable vis-a-vis the services they provide for their customers. So I make an urgent appeal to them to assume their responsibility towards minors, their integrity and their future.”

The Pope said that the balancing of free expression and privacy online is a “crucial aspect” of digital life and also raised fears about increased use of encryption which would make “any control extremely difficult, if not impossible”.