Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to prevent children from receiving (a) harmful content and (b) misinformation from chatbots.

AI generated content is regulated by the Online Safety Act where it is shared on an in-scope user-to-user or search service and constitutes illegal content or content which is harmful to children. This includes mis- and dis- information where it is assessed to present material harm to a significant number of children. Providers of pornographic content must also prevent children from accessing that content.

Chatbots with functionalities that bring them into scope of the Online Safety Act will be required to comply with the relevant duties including preventing children from encountering harmful content – whether that is real or synthetic.