Speeches by Narayan.

“I might start with where DSIT sits so that I can then talk about how we are aggregating the Defending Democracy Taskforce. DSIT’s role is focused on disinformation policy very specifically and looking at the impact of that on UK domestic audiences, agnostic to who the actors are in the conduct of any disinformation cam…”

“It is cross-departmental. If I remember correctly, is it MHCLG or Home Office?”

“The only thing I would add is that in the Defending Democracy Taskforce, we have been talking about election preparedness for the elections ahead, well before the short campaign start as well.”

“The range of levers would start with joint monitoring through the election cell, all the individual Government Departments, the agencies and the police. You might have a scenario, for example, hypothetically, where you can do something just through platform engagement and being able to share information, so that platfo…”

“First, on the very tight scope of that operational activity, which is threats to public safety and national security, the team has been engaging with platforms and has generally found a satisfactory level of engagement. But I have to stress that this is a very tight scope, and so it does not speak to the broader contex…”

“On this broader question of raising public awareness of the sorts of threats that we are seeing across Government, I am very interested in what we can do across Government. I have to confess, especially when foreign states are involved, it is an FCDO lead, so I do not want to speak on their behalf. One thing I am very …”

“I am very happy to come back and write, and certainly on a regular occasion brief the Committee on the activities of the team, to the extent we can without compromising on the objectives.”

“There is a very large number of questions there. Let me answer directly the one that I feel most strongly about. I do not feel satisfied with the scale of response we have in this country, and have had for some time, on the threat of foreign misinformation and disinformation campaigns and what they are doing to our dem…”

“It is a really important question you raise. On the question of funding, of course that is separate. There is a live case under the foreign interference offence that you will be aware of in the courts, so I will not comment on that. That is outside the online space. In the online space, as I mentioned, I will absolutel…”

“Of course. As you are very well aware, in terms of Government responsibility DSIT is overall responsible for online disinformation policy. In particular, it looks at the impacts on UK domestic audiences, agnostic of actors. The NSOIT team that you refer to is really DSIT’s operational response to information threats, w…”

“Yes, I am happy to write to Ofcom.”

“I am afraid I am going to have to frustrate your question on this because for reasons of not wanting to give answers on capacity and resourcing of the team—not least to avoid letting malicious actors have a sense of how we are acting on this question—we have tended to ensure that we are clarifying to Parliament and eng…”

“I have answered a very large number of oral questions and written questions on this particular theme and they relate very much to ensuring the scope of the team’s operational activity is appropriate. But as you will appreciate, in this context—as in other contexts of looking at operational national security responses—w…”

“Which I value very much too. That is the starting diagnosis. On the prescription, my honest sense is that the question of institutional redesign is potentially something to consider but I am much more focused on how we can do both law and enforcement—I will come to each of those in a second—in a much more intense and r…”

“Yes. The short answer to whether we will see more action and to an extent awareness is on the action front. On the awareness front, I would like us to. Again, I have to concede that the Foreign Office is better placed to make the appropriate judgments on which instances of foreign engagement to make public or not. It i…”

“It is called the labelling taskforce. We are looking at the labelling of pieces of content.”

“I would not like to claim any attribution from our meetings for the impact but platforms have had to carry out risk assessments to understand the risks of foreign interference. The team has been working with them in operational contexts and has engaged with instances flagged to them as well. Generally speaking, Ofcom i…”

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

“It is a really important thing, which I am focused on. I expect we will see a formal consultation on this question soon this year and action as quickly as possible straight after it.”

“It is a really significant question. In this domain and more broadly we are seeing, in terms of information risks and online safety, the volume of instances of attack potentially rising. In some cases, the severity is rising because of the ability of malicious actors to automate the malicious activity altogether. There…”