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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to work with (1) website providers, and (2) social media providers, to ban image-based abuse made using deepfake technology.

The Online Harms White Paper sets out our plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. We intend to establish in law a new duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. Ahead of the implementation of the new regulatory framework, we continue to work closely with companies to encourage them to take early action to address online harms.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry of Justice have also engaged the Law Commission on a second phase of their review of abusive and offensive online communications. As part of this the Law Commission will also look at the criminal law around the non-consensual taking and sharing of intimate images. This includes the creation and sharing of deepfake images. The review will look at existing offences and identify whether there are any gaps in the scope of the protection already offered to victims, making recommendations to ensure that the criminal law provides consistent and effective protection against the creation and sharing of intimate images without consent.