Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what discussions he has had with representatives of voice recognition services on the potential broadcast of illegal content into homes.

Broadcasting content regulation applies to television, video-on-demand and radio services in the UK. While some content delivered through voice recognition devices may be regulated by Ofcom (such as live radio), voice recognition services themselves are not subject to broadcasting regulation.

Under current legislation, online platforms, including those that use voice recognition software, must remove illegal content expeditiously once they are aware of its presence, or face civil or criminal liability.

The new online harms regulatory framework will apply to services which host user-generated content or enable user interaction, and to search engines, regardless of how the service is accessed. Therefore, some services that use voice recognition software may fall in scope. All in-scope companies will need to assess the risk of harm to users of their services, and take appropriate steps to mitigate that risk.

We have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders including industry, civil society, academics and parliamentarians and will continue to do so as we move towards legislation.