Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff in his Department are working on countering deepfake material.

The Home Office is working closely with law enforcement, international partners, industry and across Government – including with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as lead Department - to address the risks associated with deepfakes.

This includes Home Office teams working across crime and policing, national security, immigration and science and technology as well as the Defending Democracy Taskforce. Work on deepfakes forms part of a wider Home Office programme to manage the risks and opportunities from artificial intelligence.

We are unable to provide figures for departmental staff working on deepfakes as headcount is captured according to crime type, or broader work on artificial intelligence, and not broken down into activities specific to deepfakes.