Written questions by Poynton.

Innovation and Technology, whether his Department plans to include statutory obligations for AI developers to adopt safety-by-design measures to prevent the creation of child sexual abuse content.

The Government recognises the importance of tackling AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Creating, possessing, or distributing CSAM, including AI Generated CSAM, is illegal. The Online Safety Act requires services to proactively identify and remove this content. We are taking further action in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise CSAM image generators.As set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, we believe most AI systems should be regulated at the point of use, with our expert regulators best placed to do so. Departments are working proactively with regulators to provide clear strategic direction and support them on their AI capability needs.

Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that AI models are developed with safeguards to prevent their use in generating child sexual abuse material.

The Government recognises the importance of tackling AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Creating, possessing, or distributing CSAM, including AI Generated CSAM, is illegal. The Online Safety Act requires services to proactively identify and remove this content. We are taking further action in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise CSAM image generators.As set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, we believe most AI systems should be regulated at the point of use, with our expert regulators best placed to do so. Departments are working proactively with regulators to provide clear strategic direction and support them on their AI capability needs.

Innovation and Technology, whether his Department plans to require AI developers to demonstrate that their models include technical protections against the generation of (a) child sexual abuse imagery and (b) other (i) illegal and (ii) harmful material.

The Government recognises the importance of tackling AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Creating, possessing, or distributing CSAM, including AI Generated CSAM, is illegal. The Online Safety Act requires services to proactively identify and remove this content. We are taking further action in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise CSAM image generators.As set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, we believe most AI systems should be regulated at the point of use, with our expert regulators best placed to do so. Departments are working proactively with regulators to provide clear strategic direction and support them on their AI capability needs.

Innovation and Technology, what recent assessment his Department has made of the risk of generative AI being used to produce child sexual abuse material.

The Government recognises the importance of tackling AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Creating, possessing, or distributing CSAM, including AI Generated CSAM, is illegal. The Online Safety Act requires services to proactively identify and remove this content. We are taking further action in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise CSAM image generators.As set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, we believe most AI systems should be regulated at the point of use, with our expert regulators best placed to do so. Departments are working proactively with regulators to provide clear strategic direction and support them on their AI capability needs.

Innovation and Technology, what steps Ofcom is taking to prevent children from accessing regulated platforms while under the minimum age limits in those companies’ terms of service.

Child online safety is of utmost importance to the government. Under the Online Safety Act, all user-to-user services likely to be accessed by children have a duty to include provisions in their terms of service specifying how children of any age are prevented from encountering the most harmful content and protected from encountering other types of harmful content.Services that have age restrictions must specify in their terms of service what measures they are taking to prevent underage access, and they are required apply these terms consistently.

Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to ensure that social media companies effectively enforce their terms of service to prevent children below the required minimum age from accessing them.

Child online safety is of utmost importance to the government. Under the Online Safety Act, all user-to-user services likely to be accessed by children have a duty to include provisions in their terms of service specifying how children of any age are prevented from encountering the most harmful content and protected from encountering other types of harmful content.Services that have age restrictions must specify in their terms of service what measures they are taking to prevent underage access, and they are required apply these terms consistently.

Innovation and Technology, what discussions he has had with private messaging platforms on (a) ensuring compliance with the Online Safety Act 2023 and (b) tackling (i) grooming of children and (ii) sharing of child sexual abuse material on their platforms.

The government is committed to protecting children from these devastating crimes. The Online Safety Act will place strict safety duties on online platforms to protect children from being groomed by online predators, and to tackle child sexual exploitation and abuse content on their services. Ministers meet regularly with platforms to discuss implementation of the Online Safety Act, and the duties it will place on services to tackle illegal content on their sites. Ofcom is the independent regulator responsible for ensuring compliance with the regime.