Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of AI-driven detection technologies in preventing online child sexual abuse.

The Home Office, in collaboration with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Alan Turing Institute, and the Accelerated Capability Environment has led the Deepfake Detection Challenge. This initiative brought together experts to develop and evaluate detection tools, which are essential in addressing serious harms including online child sexual abuse. As offenders increasingly exploit AI, we must harness its potential for good.

A key outcome has been the creation of a tool which enables scientific evaluation of detection technologies, offering actionable metrics to support informed procurement decisions and helping end users select the most effective solutions. This capability is now being considered as a potential global standard.

The next phase of the Challenge will continue to identify and benchmark AI-driven solutions. The Government remains committed to investing in innovation to combat this appalling crime.

The Home Office has also introduced world leading measures by becoming the first country in the world to criminalise the possession, creation and distribution of AI tools to generate child sexual abuse material, and criminalised the possession of paedophile manuals that teach others how to create tools for this purpose.