Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
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 improve broadband speeds in rural parts of Maidenhead constituency.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
According to the independent website Thinkbroadband.com, over 99% of homes and businesses in the Maidenhead constituency can access superfast broadband speeds (>=30 Mbps) and over 87% have access to a gigabit-capable broadband connection (>1000 Mbps).
To improve this coverage further, CityFibre is delivering a Project Gigabit contract across Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and East Berkshire, targeted at bringing gigabit-capable broadband to homes and businesses in hard-to-reach areas that are unlikely to be otherwise reached by suppliers’ commercial rollout. Approximately 2,000 premises in the Maidenhead constituency are currently expected to benefit from this contract. The vast majority of these premises are in rural parts of the constituency.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
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 help tackle disinformation through AI-generated deepfakes.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We have recently announced that we are delivering on our manifesto commitment to ban the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes through the Crime and Policing Bill.
Deepfakes more broadly are captured by the Online Safety Act where they are shared on social media platforms and are considered illegal content or content which is harmful to children.
For those who think that there are no repercussions for online activity, we saw convictions for illegal online activity following the summer riots, including under the new False Communications Offence.