Fears UK not ready for deepfake general election

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already been used to disrupt elections around the world — and there are fears among senior politicians and the security services that the UK will be next.

Former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland is urging the government to do more to tackle what he sees as a «clear and present danger» to UK democracy.

The Conservative MP, who now chairs the Northern Ireland select committee, is particularly concerned about the rise of deepfakes — realistic audio and video clips of politicians appearing to say things they did not say.

The threat posed to democracy by AI-generated misinformation does not belong to some dystopian vision of the future, he argues.

«The future is here. It's happening.

»Unless the policymakers [in the UK] are showing some leadership on the need for a strong and effective domestic set of guardrails — plus international work — then we are going to be behind the curve."

He fears the next general election, which must take place by January 2025, could face the kind of disruption seen in 2017, when campaigning was suspended less than a week before polling day after the Manchester Arena bombing.

The UK government says it is taking steps to protect elections from foreign interference, through a Defending Democracy Taskforce launched last year and chaired by Home Office Security Minister Tom Tugendhat.

Many of the threats it is targeting are not new. Misinformation and dirty tricks have long been a feature of election campaigns around the world. Photoshopped images and memes — and even doctored audio of politicians — have been around for decades.

What is new, as the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) — an arm of GCHQ — pointed out in its annual report, is the easy