Home Secretary Meeting Big Tech To Collaborate On Election Year Challenges

The Home Secretary will meet with technology giants in the US next week to discuss how the UK government and tech players can work together to tackle a number of huge challenges facing democracies in the digital age.

Cleverly is visiting the US next week and will meet tech leaders including Apple, Google, and Meta in San Francisco, the home of Silicon Valley, the global centre for high technology and innovation. He will also travel to New York where it is expected he will meet officials from X, formerly Twitter.

The meetings have been organised in response to a growing mood that the UK government and other Western democracies will need to not only talk to each other, but work together to tackle growing challenges around misinformation, digital fraud, and digital exploitation and crime. 

A general election is expected in the UK by the end of the year, and more people across the world vote in elections in 2024 than in any other year in history – including in the US presidential election in November. MPs and experts have therefore warned that this year could be an "acid test" for whether democracies can protect political debate and free speech from the dangers of misinformation and disinformation.

A government source told PoliticsHome that the home secretary will talk to the firms to make sure the digital sphere has "safeguards against attempts at malign influence in the democratic process".

Ahead of the Global Fraud Summit being held in London on 11-12 March, Cleverly is also going to discuss with the companies what measures they are taking to tackle digital fraud. The UK has been working with the UN on bringing these firms on board for the Global Digital Compact, an initiative to try to ensure that digital technologies are