AI: Child Sexual Abuse Material

Debate between Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, through the Crime and Policing Bill, the Government will introduce a new suite of measures to tackle the growing threat of AI. This includes criminalising AI models made or adapted to generate child sexual abuse imagery and extending the existing paedophile manuals offence to cover AI-generated child sexual abuse material. In addition, the Home Office will bolster the network of undercover online police officers to target online offenders and develop cutting-edge AI tools and other new capabilities to infiltrate live streams and chat rooms where children are groomed. The Home Office is developing options at pace on potential device operating system-level safety controls to prevent online exploitation and abuse of children. It is also vital that we tackle the widespread sharing of self-generated indecent imagery. The report shows that 91% of the images are self-generated. This is young people who are being groomed and often quite innocently sharing their material, not realising the purpose for which it will be used. This is a huge and pressing issue, and my noble friend quite rightly raises that we need to take action now to tackle this scourge.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, it is clear that, with the constant evolution of technology, we risk not being able to legislate rapidly enough to keep pace. How are the Government conducting their horizon scanning to ensure that we are always one step ahead of those who seek to abuse children in this way?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is quite right that we have to keep the technology up to date, and of course we are endeavouring to do that. I should say that UK law applies to AI-generated CSAM in the same way as to real child sexual abuse. Creating, possessing or distributing any child sex abuse images, including those generated by AI, is illegal. Generative AI child sexual abuse imagery is priority illegal content under the Online Safety Act in the same way as real content. However, she is quite right: we have to keep abreast of the technology. We are working at pace across government to make sure that we have the capacity to do that.

Independent Pornography Review

Debate between Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 14th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. We are absolutely determined to keep children safe online and to use the Online Safety Act to provide protection across all the categories under its jurisdiction. Ofcom’s draft guidance lays out which technologies could constitute, for example, highly effective age assurance to protect children, and it will have a full range of enforcement powers to take action against companies that do not follow the duties, including substantial fines. I absolutely agree with my noble friend that robustness is key here. I think some people are frustrated that some of the duties in the Online Safety Act are taking time to be rolled out, but it was a feature of the Act that it would be done on that basis. We are very keen, as everybody in the House is, to see it enacted in full as soon as it can be.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, the Revenge Porn Helpline has a removal rate of 90% of non-consensually shared intimate content, including deepfake. However, in 10% of cases, the host site will not comply with its removal, even where there has been a successful conviction. These sites are often hosted in Russia and Latin America, and are unlikely to come under Ofcom’s scope, even with the changes that make sharing a priority offence. Can the Minister inform the House what action the Government are taking to address non-compliance, and does she agree that it would be better adopt a rapid and wide-ranging approach—favoured by victims—to deem NCII content illegal, thus giving internet service providers the power to block it?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her continuing interest in this issue and her campaigning work. The Government have already put forward secondary legislation to ensure that the new intimate image abuse offence is made a priority under the Online Safety Act, and all other acts of deepfake portrayal will come under the Act if they are illegal. Going back to the earlier question about robustness, we absolutely expect Ofcom to implement those protections in a robust way.

Electronic Media: False Information

Debate between Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My noble friend makes the important point that international co-operation is absolutely vital. We continue to talk to all our friends across the globe, exchanging information and making sure that best practice arises from those discussions.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, research by Vodafone found that algorithms are pushing content to boys related to misogyny and violence following innocent and unrelated searches. Can the Minister say whether the Government are looking into how these algorithms have been used not only to push misinformation and disinformation but to push people towards and reinforce more extreme views?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, deepfakes and other forms of manipulated media are captured by the Online Safety Act where they constitute illegal content or harmful content to children in scope of the regulatory framework. Under the Act, all companies will be forced to take action against illegal content online, including illegal misinformation and disinformation, and they will be required to remove in-scope content. These duties will also apply to in-scope AI-generated content and AI-powered features.