Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to prevent corporate intelligence firms registered in the Channel Islands from accessing phones of UK citizens for surveillance purposes.

The Telecommunications (Security) Bill, currently before the House of Commons, will boost the security standards of our telecoms networks and services. The Bill will require that telecoms providers take measures to protect their networks and services from security compromises. This will provide extra protection to UK telecoms users - including from their data being accessed unlawfully.

The Channel Islands are self-governing, however they have committed to align their forthcoming telecoms security frameworks to the UK's Bill.

The National Cyber Security Centre works with providers in the UK and the Channel Islands to help protect their security. This includes the Active Cyber Defence programme that aims to protect the UK from the high-volume commodity attacks that affect people’s everyday lives.