Speeches by Narayan.

“My hon. Friend has been a remarkable champion for the BSI, on this and on wider issues as well. I will not sing “Happy Birthday”, but I will certainly wish it a very happy birthday, and I look forward to continuing my conversations with it.”

“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) for so expertly introducing this debate on the UK-India technology security initiative. Technology and my early upbringing in India have profoundly shaped my life, so it is a particular privilege t…”

“Sitting suspended.”

“Thank you, Chair, and thank you in particular for both the inquiry that you are conducting as a group and for that generous opener. The fundamental thing I would say is that you will know more than any other part of Parliament that we are in a totally new geopolitical paradigm. AI is the central question in terms of ca…”

“Sorry, that is an independent thing.”

“That is right.”

“If we speak about very specific amendments, MHCLG is of course the Department leading on it, and we are contributing. I am engaging very closely with my colleagues in MHCLG on the question.”

“Prosecuted? Talitha, I am going to have to rely on you to decide.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Foreign interference as an offence is very much owned by the Home Office. There are some aspects of deepfakes that I am involved in. The question of personality rights, for example, is a question that is very much in scope for my role.”

“As you will appreciate, foreign interference offences have a series of offline instances. You will be very well aware of widely covered cases, not least those subject to court action at the moment. Of course, the offline cases are not in the ambit of Ofcom, and so they are dealt with by the Home Office. Regarding onlin…”

“No, not at all. In fact, it is the opposite. The elements of foreign interference covered in the Online Safety Act come from the offence but the foreign interference offence covers offline stuff, which is totally separate from the—”

“On prescription, I feel a very strong urge that we need to turn up the volume on this and I will continue to push for that wherever it is feasible and appropriate.”

“I will get in particular trouble with the whips if I commit to a legislative vehicle for a hypothetical regulatory action.”

“You will be more aware than me given all your experience. We will be consulting on a range of ways in which we can best protect individuals’ rights without contravening appropriate free expression values when also tackling digital replicas. We will do that as a precursor to then being able to take action on the appropr…”

“The fundamental thing that we are looking at, as I mentioned in the consultation, is personality rights born out of this feeling over the manipulation of individuals’ rights to their own personality online. It applies more acutely to public figures and politicians but it applies broadly too. It is a definite problem an…”

“As an offence, it is owned by the Home Office.”

“If I recall from memory it has been about four months or so at the very least.”

“In its implementation of the online aspects of foreign interference as they relate to the Online Safety Act, Ofcom reports to us in the DSIT context.”

“On the first question of whether it is an offence or not, ostensibly it feels totally wrong to me. Given the threshold set in the law, which is that you just need reasonable grounds to infer foreign interference, not conclusive proof of it, without pre-empting the individual cases, to me it would feel like there is a p…”