Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Wednesday 18th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 203 and, in particular, Amendments 211G and 211H from the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. I have little to add to what I said on Friday. I confess to my noble friend the Minister that, in my speech on Friday, I asked whether this issue would be in scope for this Bill, so maybe I gave the noble Baroness the idea. I pay tribute to her agility in being able to act quickly to get this amendment in and include something on audio, following the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir.

I hope that the Minister has similar agility in being able to readjust the Government’s position on this. It is right that this was an urgent manifesto commitment from my party at the last election. It fits entirely with my right honourable friend the Home Secretary’s efforts around violence against women and girls. We should accept and grab this opportunity to deliver quickly by working with the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, and others between now and Report to bring forward an amendment to the Bill that the whole House will support enthusiastically.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, we have had some powerful speeches in this group, not least from the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Owen, who drafted important amendments that respond to the escalating harms caused by AI-generated sexual abuse material relating to children and adults. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would make it an offence to use personal data or digital information to create digital models or files that facilitate the creation of AI or computer-generated child sexual abuse material. As she outlined and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, confirmed, it specifically would become an offence to create, train or distribute generative AI models that enable the creation of computer-generated CSAM or priority legal content; to train AI models on CSAM or priority illegal content; or to possess AI models that produce CSAM or priority legal content.

This amendment responds to a growing problem, as we have heard, around computer-generated sexual abuse material and a gap in the law. There is a total lack of safeguards preventing bad actors creating sexual abuse imagery, and it is causing real harm. Sites enabling this abuse are offering tools to harm, humiliate, harass, coerce and cause reputational damage. Without robust legal frameworks, victims are left vulnerable while perpetrators operate with impunity.

The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, mentioned the Internet Watch Foundation. In its report of July, One Step Ahead, it reported on the alarming rise of AI-generated CSAM. In October 2023, in How AI is Being Abused to Create Child Sexual Abuse Imagery, it made recommendations to the Government regarding legislation to strengthen legal frameworks to better address the evolving landscape of AI-generated CSAM and enhance preventive measures against its creation and distribution. It specifically recommended:

“That the Government legislates to make it an offence to use personal data or digital information to create digital models or files that facilitate the creation of AI or computer-generated child sexual abuse material”.


The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, tabled such an amendment to the previous Bill. As she said, she was successful in persuading the then Government to accept it; I very much hope that she will be as successful in persuading this Government to accept her amendment.

Amendments 211G and 211H in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, are a response to the extraordinary fact that one in 14 adults has experienced threats to share intimate images in England and Wales; that rises to one in seven among young women. Research from Internet Matters shows that 49% of young teenagers in the UK aged between 13 and 16—around 750,000 children—said that they were aware of a form of image-based abuse being perpetrated against another young person known to them.

We debated the first of the noble Baroness’s amendments, which is incorporated in her Bill, last Friday. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight; I did not find the Government’s response at all satisfactory. I hope that, in the short passage of time between then and now, they have had time to be at least a little agile, as he requested. UK law clearly does not effectively address non-consensual intimate images. It is currently illegal to share or threaten to share non-consensual intimate images, including deepfakes, but creating them is not yet illegal; this means that someone could create a deepfake image of another person without their consent and not face legal consequences as long as they do not share, or threaten to share, it.

This amendment is extremely welcome. It addresses the gap in the law by criminalising the creation of non-consensual intimate images, including deepfakes. It rightly targets deepfakes due to their rising prevalence and potential for harm, particularly towards women. Research shows that 98% of deepfake videos online are pornographic, with 99% featuring women and girls. This makes it an inherently sexist problem that is a new frontier of violence against women—words that I know the noble Baroness has used.

I also very much welcome the new amendment not contained in her Bill, responding to what the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, said at its Second Reading last Friday about including audio deepfakes. The words “shut down every avenue”, which I think were used by the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, are entirely apposite in these circumstances. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, said on Friday, I hope that the Government will accept both these amendments and redeem their manifesto pledge to ban the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes, whether audio or video.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

That is slightly splitting hairs. The noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, might want to comment because he wanted to delete the wording that says:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that … there is, or is not, to be taken to be meaningful human involvement”.


He certainly will determine—or is able to determine, at least—whether or not there is human involvement. Surely, as part of that, there will need to be consideration of what human involvement is.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

Will the Minister reflect on the issues around a case-by-case basis? If I were running an organisation of any sort and decided I wanted to use ADM, how would I make a judgment about what is meaningful human involvement on a case-by-case basis? It implies that I would have to hope that my judgment was okay because I have not had clarity from anywhere else and in retrospect, someone might come after me if I got that judgment wrong. I am not sure that works, so will she reflect on that at some point?