Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the report by AI Forensics entitled ‘Harassment as Infrastructure’, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of payment providers facilitating payments for access to non-consensual intimate image.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
The Online Safety Act places clear duties on in-scope services to tackle illegal content, including non-consensual intimate image abuse, backed by Ofcom’s strong enforcement powers. Where services fail to comply, Ofcom can seek Business Disruption Measures to restrict access to those services, including measures which may require third-party payment providers to withdraw services from non-compliant sites.
We are strengthening the regulatory framework through new criminal offences and a 48-hour removal duty, alongside Ofcom’s use of hash-matching to prevent re-sharing.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department has made an estimate of how much money online platforms receive from image-based sexual abuse channels on their services.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
Non-consensual intimate images (NCII) are completely unacceptable and tackling this abuse is a priority for this government.
Under the Online Safety Act, services must assess for the risk of NCII, take steps to prevent this content appearing and removing it swiftly when it does. This government has built on the framework by introducing a new requirement on service to remove NCII within 48 hours of a valid report.
This is complemented by Ofcom’s update to its illegal content codes on the use of hash-matching to deliver victim-centred protection from this horrific abuse.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will bring forward an AI Bill that ensures the safety of current and emerging AI products to help tackle the harms of tech-facilitated gender-based violence.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
Tackling violence against women and girls, including online, is a government priority. The Online Safety Act (OSA) establishes a strong regime requiring in-scope AI services to tackle illegal content and protect children from harmful content.
However, we’ve always been clear we would go further where necessary to tackle emerging AI harms. We have criminalised the creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes and we decided to make it an OSA Priority Offence. We have banned AI nudification apps. We have also legislated in the Crime and Policing Act to ensure that platforms are required to take down non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours. Ofcom has accelerated and announced its decision that service providers should use ‘hash matching’ technology to combat image abuse online.
New powers will also enable regulation of currently unregulated chatbots, requiring them to protect their users from illegal content, including non-consensual intimate images and child abuse. In response to the AI Action Plan, the Government committed to work with regulators to boost their capabilities.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of AI innovations increasing violence against women and girls.
Answered by Natalie Fleet
We are determined to keep women and girls safe from the ever-evolving threat of criminal misuse of artificial intelligence. Accurately estimating the cost to the public purse of AI-enabled violence against women and girls (VAWG) is difficult given uncertainties with regards to the scale of AI-enabled offending. AI has the potential to considerably increase these costs by making it easier for criminals to produce more realistic material and at greater scale than ever before.
The Home Office will continue to ensure that Law Enforcement have the capabilities they need to tackle perpetrators who exploit the use of artificial intelligence to commit violence against women and girls.
In addition, the Home Office has introduced world leading measures, becoming the first country to criminalise the possession, creation and distribution of AI tools to generate child sexual abuse material, as well as the criminalisation of the development and supply of nudification tools.