The Government has in place established systems and processes to protect the democratic integrity of the UK. Alongside this, the Defending Democracy Taskforce works to reduce the risk to the UK’s democratic processes, institutions and society and ensure that these are secure and resilient to threats of foreign interference. The Taskforce brings together Ministers, operational agencies, and other partners to work on the full range of threats facing the UK’s democracy and improve confidence in the integrity and security of our elections. In 2023, the Defending Democracy Taskforce set up the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit (JESP) as a permanent function dedicated to protecting UK elections and referendums. JESP stood up an Election Cell for the 2024 UK General Election. The cell coordinated a wide range of teams across Government to respond to issues, including AI-generated mis- and disinformation, as they emerged. DSIT met regularly with the major social media platforms in the run up to and during the election period, to discuss what action they were taking to protect the integrity of the UK’s democratic processes. This helped to ensure a broadly robust response from platforms to content that may undermine the election, including through media literacy initiatives and improvements in their Terms of Service. The Online Safety Act has also introduced measures to combat these threats. Under the Act, platforms will have duties to implement systems and processes to mitigate illegal content, including illegal mis- and disinformation, and will be required to take steps to remove in-scope content if they become aware of it on their services. This includes content which constitutes Foreign Interference, which has been added as a priority offence and captures a wide-range of state-sponsored mis- and disinformation and state-linked interference online aimed at the UK. AI- generated material, including deepfakes, is captured by the Act where it constitutes user generated content that is illegal or harmful to children. where it is prohibited in their terms of service. Government response to Committee recommendation 39