Deepfakes: General Election

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

Indeed—and let me first thank my noble friend for bringing up this important matter. That sounds to me like something that would be likely to be applied under the false communications offence in the Online Safety Act—Section 179—although I would not be able to say for sure. The tests that it would need to meet are that the information would have to be knowingly false and cause non-trivial physical or psychological harm to those offended, but that would seem to be the relevant offence.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, does not the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, highlight that we must hold to account with legal liability not only those who create this kind of deepfake content and facilitate its spread, but those who enable the production of deepfakes with software, such as by having standards and risk-based regulation for generative AI systems, which the Government in their White Paper have resolutely refused to do?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

The Government set out in their White Paper response that off-the-shelf AI software that can in part be used to create these kinds of deepfakes is not, in and of itself, something that we are considering placing any ban on. However, there are ranges of software, a sort of middle layer to the AI production, that can greatly facilitate the production of deepfakes of all kinds, not just political but other kinds of criminal deepfakes—and there the Government would be actively considering moving against those purpose-built criminal tools.