Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department are taking to tackle Artificial Intelligence generating child sexual abuse material online.

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 Government not only works closely with law enforcement but also child protection agencies to develop a robust assessment of the threat posed by child sexual offenders and therefore create technological and legislative solutions to target offenders and safeguard children.

It is not only the duty of the government to take this threat seriously, but also that of the technology companies that utilise Artificial Intelligence. They must incorporate safety measures to ensure their technology cannot be exploited by child sexual offenders.

That is why this Government is currently driving forward the Online Safety Bill which seeks to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. The Online Safety Bill will, for the first time, place clear legal duties on technology companies to take proactive steps to identify, remove and prevent users encountering illegal content, including child sexual abuse content from platforms/services. This includes AI-generated child sexual abuse content. Companies who fail to fulfil their legal duties will be held to account by an independent regulator, Ofcom, who will have strong enforcement powers.