UK government launches deepfake detection initiative as ‘urgent national priority’
The UK government plans to develop and implement a framework to detect “harmful and deceptive” deepfake content in collaboration with tech firms, academics and experts, in what it claims is a world first.
Deepfakes are AI-generated images, videos or audio that often use the identities of real people and appear plausible but portray events that did not occur or opinions not held by those featured. They are increasingly being used to spread disinformation, commit fraud, and to create sexualised images of real people without their consent.
Such content has proliferated online in recent years as the tools used to create them have become more accessible. UK government figures show that the volume of AI-generated deepfakes shared online grew from an estimated 500,000 in 2023 to eight million in 2025.
In collaboration with tech companies such as Microsoft, academics and other experts, the government will develop a framework to evaluate how technology can be used to assess, understand and detect harmful deepfake materials as an “urgent national priority”. Tools will be tested against threats such as sexual abuse, fraud and impersonation.
Jess Phillips, the UK minister for safeguarding, said that plans for the framework marked a decisive step towards combating an injustice affecting millions of people.
“This framework will… seek out the tactics of vile criminals, and close loopholes to stop them in their tracks so they have nowhere to hide,” she said.
The government said that once the testing framework is established, it will be used to “set clear expectations for industries on deepfake detection standards”.
The Deepfake Detection Challenge – and new legislation
As part of this work, the government led and funded the Deepfake Detection Challenge, which was hosted by Microsoft at the end of January. Over four days, more than 350 participants took part, including international police force INTERPOL, members of the Five Eyes community and big tech.
Teams were challenging to identify real, fake and partially manipulated audiovisual media in scenarios that reflected pressing national security and public safety risks, such as victim identification, election security, organised crime, impersonation, and fraudulent documentation.
The framework is part of the government’s pledge to ensure that people are protected from evolving online and offline threats.
It said it had fast-tracked legislation making it illegal for anyone to create or request deepfake intimate images of adults without consent, which came into law on 6 February.
Work to criminalise the creation of non-consensual intimate images, including sexually explicit deepfakes, is to be designated an offence under the Online Safety Act. This means that platforms “can be required to take proactive steps to prevent it from happening in the first place, not just react after the harm is done”, according to government.
Further measures will ban ‘nudification’ tools and criminalise those who design and supply them, and form part of the government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
Governments round on Grok
The UK joins a growing list of countries that are making efforts to hold social media platforms to account. Last month, a string of investigations were launched by governments into the Grok AI feature of X, which allowed users to generate sexualised images of real people – including ‘undressing’ women and children – based on prompts.
France, the UK, Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the European Commission are among those to be considering legal proceedings, bans and other measures. The UK regulator Ofcom is investigating offensive images on X, and the country’s prime minister Keir Starmer said that he wanted “all options to be on the table,” including an outright ban of the social media platform.
Read more: Governments take action against Grok AI tool over sexualised images
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
