Written questions by Dodds.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the role of media literacy in supporting (a) public health, (b) national security and (c) democracy.

Media literacy enables citizens to critically assess information and make informed choices. It supports public health, national security and democracy by countering misinformation, improving society’s resilience to online threats, and empowering safe, confident participation online.Media literacy is a cross-government priority, delivered through coordinated action across departments, civil society and industry, supported by targeted funding and community-led initiatives.The Online Safety Act requires social media platforms to tackle illegal content relating to national security, health and democracy. It also updates Ofcom’s statutory duty to promote media literacy, which includes raising awareness of misinformation and helping users assess the reliability of content.

Innovation and Technology, if he will hold discussions with Google on its compliance with the Frontier AI Safety Commitments made at the AI Seoul Summit 2024, published on 21 May 2024.

We expect all signatories to the Seoul commitments to stand by their agreements. The AI Security Institute, within DSIT, has ongoing discussions will all major developers, including Google DeepMind, about the implementation of frontier AI frameworks that guide the safe development of AI.The government welcomes Google's recently published framework that prioritises the emerging risk of deception in AI models and their plans to publish safety cases.

Innovation and Technology, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of (a) children and (b) adults who access the internet through a virtual private network.

The Government does not hold this information. However, Ofcom’s Technology Tracker (2024) indicates that 30% of the UK’s population over 16 years old has connected to the internet using a virtual private network (VPN) for work, education or other purposes. This increases to 38% for 16-17 year olds. This data does not demonstrate how regularly respondents use VPNs to access the internet.