Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of AI-driven technology on a) detecting and b) preventing livestreamed child sexual abuse before transmission occurs.

The Government is unequivocal in its commitment to protecting children from online sexual abuse. Livestreamed abuse is a particularly abhorrent form of exploitation, and we are determined to ensure that offenders cannot use technology to harm children with impunity.

The Online Safety Act introduces world-leading protections for children. It places robust duties on tech companies to prevent and swiftly remove illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, and to take proactive steps to protect children from harm. Ofcom, as the regulator, will have strong enforcement powers to ensure compliance.

We committed in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy – Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls (accessible) - GOV.UK – ‘to make it impossible for children in the UK to take, share or view a nude image’ and that ‘we are working constructively with companies to make this a reality’. The use of AI-driven technology to detect and disrupt livestreamed child sexual abuse is vital to the delivery of this commitment – including through the deployment of such technology at device operating system level, which can help prevent abuse before it happens. Such tools can detect and disrupt livestreamed abuse and other image-based harms, while respecting users’ privacy and maintaining end-to-end encryption.

The Government continues to work closely with law enforcement, industry, and child protection experts to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of efforts to tackle online child sexual abuse.