Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Home Department, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to make it a criminal offence to create fake online media accounts for public bodies and organisations where the communication of official and public information is necessary for civic order and resilience.

Under the Online Safety Act, all services in scope must tackle illegal content and activity which enables fraud, including activity through fake and anonymous accounts. The illegal harms duties will come into force in Spring 2025.

More broadly, government departments and agencies continually seek to identify malicious websites that intend to impersonate public sector bodies and enable fraudulent activity. Those creating such websites may be liable for prosecution for fraud or computer misuse offences.

Domain registrars, Internet infrastructure (IIPs) and service providers (ISPs) operate robust voluntary arrangements for filtering, blocking and takedown of malicious websites, which is supported by the operational work of our agencies and law enforcement. NCSC also works in collaboration with industry partners to present ISPs with real-time threat data that enables them to instantly block access to known fraudulent or malicious websites. This has a major impact in protecting citizens from cyber- and cyber-facilitated crimes.

The Government is committed to ensuring that the UK is the safest place to live and work online. It is essential that the UK has the right legislative framework to allow us to tackle the harms posed to our citizens, businesses, and government services online.