Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to prevent the proliferation of AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery.
Answered by Sarah Dines
The Government remains firmly committed to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse online and in our communities across the UK and internationally. Our approach is underpinned by the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy which sets out firm commitments to drive action across the whole system.
The law in the UK is very clear with regards to production of child sexual abuse material. It is an offence to produce, store, share or search for any material that contains or depicts child sexual abuse, regardless of whether the material depicts a ‘real’ child or not. This prohibition also includes pseudo-imagery that may have been computer-generated.
Home Office investment supports the National Crime Agency to use its unique capabilities to disrupt the highest harm offenders, safeguard children and remove the most horrific child sexual abuse material from the internet, including on the dark web.
The Home Office has recently rolled out new tools linked to our world leading Child Abuse Image Database to support law enforcement to identify offenders and safeguard victims more quickly.
All companies that utilise Artificial Intelligence must incorporate safety measures to ensure their technology cannot be manipulated by offenders of this abhorrent crime. We welcome further engagement with industries to work together to implement or create the best solution for their platforms.
As part of the Government’s work to tackle child sexual abuse offences in every form, the Government has driven forward the Online Safety Bill, which will soon gain royal assent and become law. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Bill are for children and all companies in scope of the legislation will need to tackle child sexual abuse material as a priority.
In September, the Home Secretary met US Secretary of State Alejandro N. Majorkas at NCMEC and reaffirmed their commitment to combined expertise of the UK and United States to ensure perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation cannot operate across continents.
In partnership with the IWF, the Home Office will be hosting an AI Summit side event to discuss the growing threat of generative artificial intelligence creating child sexual abuse material. The summit will bring international stakeholders together to encourage co-operation to tackle this heinous crime.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent progress her Department has made on reducing AI-generated child sex abuse imagery.
Answered by Sarah Dines
The Government remains firmly committed to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse online and in our communities across the UK and internationally. Our approach is underpinned by the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy which sets out firm commitments to drive action across the whole system.
The law in the UK is very clear with regards to production of child sexual abuse material. It is an offence to produce, store, share or search for any material that contains or depicts child sexual abuse, regardless of whether the material depicts a ‘real’ child or not. This prohibition also includes pseudo-imagery that may have been computer-generated.
Home Office investment supports the National Crime Agency to use its unique capabilities to disrupt the highest harm offenders, safeguard children and remove the most horrific child sexual abuse material from the internet, including on the dark web.
The Home Office has recently rolled out new tools linked to our world leading Child Abuse Image Database to support law enforcement to identify offenders and safeguard victims more quickly.
All companies that utilise Artificial Intelligence must incorporate safety measures to ensure their technology cannot be manipulated by offenders of this abhorrent crime. We welcome further engagement with industries to work together to implement or create the best solution for their platforms.
As part of the Government’s work to tackle child sexual abuse offences in every form, the Government has driven forward the Online Safety Bill, which will soon gain royal assent and become law. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Bill are for children and all companies in scope of the legislation will need to tackle child sexual abuse material as a priority.
In September, the Home Secretary met US Secretary of State Alejandro N. Majorkas at NCMEC and reaffirmed their commitment to combined expertise of the UK and United States to ensure perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation cannot operate across continents.
In partnership with the IWF, the Home Office will be hosting an AI Summit side event to discuss the growing threat of generative artificial intelligence creating child sexual abuse material. The summit will bring international stakeholders together to encourage co-operation to tackle this heinous crime.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many incidents of fraud were referred to UK Finance in each year since 2016 inclusive.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the NFIB refer to police forces for investigation and on the investigative outcomes recorded by the police.
This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. This provides information on all fraud cases referred to the police for investigation and their outcomes, but we cannot separately identify those reported from different bodies in the data that we hold centrally. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here:
Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of cases referred to UK Finance resulted in a police investigation in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the NFIB refer to police forces for investigation and on the investigative outcomes recorded by the police.
This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. This provides information on all fraud cases referred to the police for investigation and their outcomes, but we cannot separately identify those reported from different bodies in the data that we hold centrally. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here:
Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many incidents of fraud were referred to Cifas in each year since 2016 inclusive.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the NFIB refer to police forces for investigation and on the investigative outcomes recorded by the police.
This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. This provides information on all fraud cases referred to the police for investigation and their outcomes, but we cannot separately identify those reported from different bodies in the data that we hold centrally. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here:
Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of cases referred to Cifas in 2021 resulted in a police investigation.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the NFIB refer to police forces for investigation and on the investigative outcomes recorded by the police.
This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. This provides information on all fraud cases referred to the police for investigation and their outcomes, but we cannot separately identify those reported from different bodies in the data that we hold centrally. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here:
Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether fraud will be included in the crime statistics for the UK; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the National Fraud Investigation Bureau (NFIB) refer to police forces for investigation and on the number of fraud outcomes recorded by the police. This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here: Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Current official statistics for England and Wales by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) do include fraud but to allow analysis of long-term trends, a headline measure excluding fraud is also captured. Policing, including crime statistics, is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The table below shows the number of fraud reports directly reported into Action Fraud since 2016:
2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
247,864 | 270,520 | 301,123 | 330,340 | 363,489 | 413,789 |
This does not include UK Finance and Cifas data, only crimes that were directly reported into Action Fraud.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many incidents of fraud were referred to Action Fraud in each year since 2016 inclusive.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the National Fraud Investigation Bureau (NFIB) refer to police forces for investigation and on the number of fraud outcomes recorded by the police. This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here: Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Current official statistics for England and Wales by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) do include fraud but to allow analysis of long-term trends, a headline measure excluding fraud is also captured. Policing, including crime statistics, is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The table below shows the number of fraud reports directly reported into Action Fraud since 2016:
2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
247,864 | 270,520 | 301,123 | 330,340 | 363,489 | 413,789 |
This does not include UK Finance and Cifas data, only crimes that were directly reported into Action Fraud.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of cases referred to Action Fraud in 2021 resulted in a police investigation
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Home Office collects information on the number of fraud offences that the National Fraud Investigation Bureau (NFIB) refer to police forces for investigation and on the number of fraud outcomes recorded by the police. This data is published annually as part of the Home Office’s ‘Crime Outcomes in England and Wales’ publication. The latest available data for the year ending March 2022 can be found be here: Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Current official statistics for England and Wales by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) do include fraud but to allow analysis of long-term trends, a headline measure excluding fraud is also captured. Policing, including crime statistics, is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The table below shows the number of fraud reports directly reported into Action Fraud since 2016:
2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
247,864 | 270,520 | 301,123 | 330,340 | 363,489 | 413,789 |
This does not include UK Finance and Cifas data, only crimes that were directly reported into Action Fraud.
Asked by: Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 following the review announced in May 2021.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Integrated Review committed the UK to fortifying its position as a world-leading and responsible cyber power, taking a new, full spectrum approach to the UK’s cyber capability through keeping our people safe, staying ahead of our enemies and improving the lives of the British people.
Robust domestic legislation is key to achieving this mission and whilst the Computer Misuse Act has proved to be an effective piece of legislation, we need to ensure that it remains able to tackle the ever-changing cyber threat. For this reason, on 11 May, the Home Secretary announced that the Government was to conduct a Call for Information, as part of a review of the Computer Misuse Act.
The Call for Information has now closed and the Home Office is reviewing the proposals made. We will provide an update to Parliament in due course.