Speeches by Narayan.

“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.”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 do not think that is something Ofcom has publicised, rightly, in the course of a consultation.”

“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.”

“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 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…”

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

“The online aspect of it has been live since July, so about 10 months. Platforms have conducted risk assessments that look in particular at the threat of foreign interference. One thing Ofcom has realised is that there are some platforms where the risk of foreign interference is higher still. In those cases, Ofcom is no…”

“We are seeing a live instance of the offence being operationalised through a court case at the moment, so I will not pre-empt the answer as to whether the offence is sufficient or not. I very much welcome the Committee’s thoughts on it. As I mentioned, the specific threshold evidentially is to have reasonable grounds t…”

“The funding has gone up materially. I cannot find the exact numbers to hand but the funding has gone up very significantly. At no point have I been told that there is a capacity challenge. On the other hand I appreciate that what we are experiencing in terms of outcomes online may not always satisfy us. As I mentioned …”

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

“Ofcom has recently consulted on further safety measures, in particular for platforms at risk of foreign interference threats. I would expect to see the codes emanating from that consultation as soon as possible.”

“We have communicated to Ofcom on at least one formal public occasion that we want it to go further and faster on enforcement as well.”

“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…”

“The platforms have some transparency reporting at the moment and we still need to do more, at the very least in information sharing between platforms and across Government on the nature and source of the risks. Whether we should enforce particular standards of platforms reporting and attributing is a more open question…”

“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…”