Gregory Campbell warns of potential for repeat of ‘grossly offensive’ AI ‘deepfakes’ during election

Transcript

00:00 Mr Speaker, during the Northern Ireland Assembly campaign, some female candidates were subjected

00:06 to AI, utilised deepfake and grossly offensive content. What action is being taken by the

00:13 Government to regulate the dissemination of such imagery, where it could affect the otherwise

00:19 freely expressed choice of voters at the ballot box, especially as we approach a general election

00:26 in the coming months?

00:28 Mr Speaker, the Online Safety Act did introduce new offences which criminalise the sharing

00:32 or threatening to share an intimate image without consent, and that includes deepfake

00:37 intimate images. The Government are working to ensure we are ready to respond to the full

00:41 range of threats to our democratic processes, including through the Defending Democracy

00:45 Taskforce. If deepfakes are discovered by users on social media, they should report

00:50 them directly to the platform. In the case of elections, they should be reported directly

00:54 to the Electoral Commission because it is already an electoral offence to make false

00:57 statements of fact about the character or conduct of a candidate during an election.