Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to implement the Online Safety Act 2023 to protect young people from (a) harmful content and (b) AI-deepfakes.

The government is focused on implementing the Online Safety Act as quickly as possible working with Ofcom. Ofcom has consulted on its draft Children’s Safety codes of practice which set out the steps companies must take to protect children on their platforms under the Online Safety Act. Ofcom will publish the finalised codes and guidance in Spring 2025 and the government will work to ensure these codes are in effect as soon as possible.

Deepfakes and other forms of manipulated media are captured by the Online Safety Act where they constitute user generated content that is illegal content, or content which is harmful to children. Services that are likely to be accessed by children will need to take steps to protect children from harmful content and behaviour on their services, including AI-generated or enabled content.