Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent online paid services from being accessed by autonomous AI agents without payment.

The Government recognises concerns about autonomous AI agents accessing paid online services without authorisation or payment Existing law provides protections for online content and services. Access can be governed by contractual terms, while use of copyright-protected works generally requires a licence or other permission from rightsholder, unless an exception applies.

The Government is reviewing mechanisms available to creators to control their works online, including technical standards and solutions. We will publish in spring 2027.

More broadly, the Government is taking significant action to strengthen protections against AI-agent incidents. This includes a £40 million investment into a new National Agentic Security Unit to develop new capabilities to detect, investigate and respond to agentic AI incidents. The National Cyber Security Centre has also published guidance for organisations on how to deploy agentic AI systems securely.