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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will take steps to develop an industry standard to ensure the security of simple internet-connected devices such as cameras, televisions and domestic appliances.

The cyber security of the UK is a top priority for the Government which is why we are investing £1.9 billion and have opened the National Cyber Security Centre to help make the UK the safest place to live and do business online. The Government works closely with industry to promote the need for good cyber security practices. Manufacturers of Internet-connected devices should ensure those devices have appropriate security measures built in and seek to ensure emerging technologies are secure by design.

The Government funds a variety of ongoing research on cyber security to ensure we are able to address current and future challenges, such as security in the Internet of Things. This includes 13 Academic Centres of Excellence in cyber security research based at UK universities, three cyber security Research Institutes investigating strategically important subjects and the Internet of Things Research Hub led by the PETRAS consortium of nine leading UK universities. Further Information on the IoT research hub is at https://www.petrashub.org, and the three Research Institutes are here:

http://www.riscs.org.uk,

https://ritics.org,

https://verificationinstitute.org