Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will visit Dr Sophie Nightingale at Lancaster University and her specialist lab investigating generative AI and its use to create sexual digital forgeries to discuss the contribution of that research to the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.

The Government recognises and shares concerns about the proliferation of AI-enabled products and services that facilitate the creation of sexual forgeries, including deepfake non-consensual intimate images (NCII).

The Data (Use and Access) Act inserts new offences into the Sexual

Offences Act 2003, criminalising the creation and requesting the creation of

an intimate deepfake without consent (or reasonable belief in consent).

In addition to this offence, the Government announced that it will ban nudification apps and other tools designed to create synthetic NCII to stop victims’ images being tampered with and exploited without their consent. This was announced in the Freedom from Violence and Abuse: Cross-government Strategy to Build a Society for Women and Girls, which was published on 18 December.

The Home Office introduced world-leading measures, making the UK the first country to outlaw the possession, creation and distribution of AI tools for generating child sexual abuse material, as well as criminalising paedophile manuals that instruct others on developing such tools. We have also introduced an AI testing defence to help strengthen safeguards against AI models being used to create sexual digital forgeries.

We recognise the important role of academics in this space, including Dr. Sophie Nightingale, with whom Government officials have engaged. We look forward to continuing this engagement to combat and prevent AI-enabled harms.