Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government is taking to tackle online deep fakes in political campaigning.

The Government recognises the potential challenges artificial intelligence and digitally manipulated content, including “deepfakes”, may pose. We are considering these issues carefully as part of cross-Whitehall efforts to tackle online manipulation.

The Cabinet Office is taking a cross-Government approach to the safeguarding of our electoral processes through the Defending Democracy programme, including in relation to online manipulation. The Government has announced a range of measures to safeguard UK elections, including commitments to launch a consultation on electoral integrity and implementing a digital imprints regime for online election material. More detail on both of these will be brought forward in the coming months.

The Online Harms White Paper set out the Government's plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. We intend to establish a new statutory duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator, to ensure companies have appropriate processes in place to deal with harmful content on their service, and keep their users safe. Disinformation is one of the harms proposed to be in scope of the regulator.