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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the role of technology companies in preventing the harmful use of deepfake technology.

The Government recognises the challenges digitally manipulated content such as deepfakes pose.

The Online Safety Bill requires service providers to tackle serious and illegal forms of manipulated media. All services in scope of the Bill will need to proactively remove and prevent users from being exposed to priority illegal content. This could include deepfake material where it is linked to existing priority offences, such as extreme or revenge pornography. Service providers will also need to prevent children from accessing content, including deepfakes, which is harmful or inappropriate. Major platforms will also need to set out clearly their terms of service in relation to priority content that is legal but harmful to adults, which may include deepfake content. They will need to enforce these terms of service consistently.

The Government has also asked the Law Commission to review the criminal law related to intimate images. This review is sponsored by the Ministry of Justice and includes ‘deepfake’ pornography. The Law Commission will publish its final report and recommendations later this year.