Elections: Disinformation

11. Whether the committee has had recent discussions with the Electoral Commission on the potential impact of disinformation on the integrity of elections.

The committee has had recent discussions with the Electoral Commission on the matters raised. The commission recognises the risk posed to the integrity of elections by disinformation and misinformation, and it is contributing to efforts across the public sector, including other regulators and the Government, to guard against negative impacts. The legal regime the commission regulates is focused on ensuring that political finance is transparent, and that campaigning material includes an imprint showing voters who has produced the material. It does not have a role in regulating the content of election campaign material, but it encourages all campaigners to undertake their role responsibly and transparently.

That is good to hear, but we have heard there will be a lot of attempted disinformation around the US presidential elections in the coming months, so what assessment has the Electoral Commission actually made of the risks of holding a UK general election at a time when there will be a greatly increased risk of hostile disinformation campaigns, with what appear to be grass- roots Facebook groups on low emission zones recently being exposed as having been set up by Conservatives’ staff members?

The commission’s role is to ensure the financing of campaigns is transparent; it does not have a role in regulating the content of election campaign material, such as by preventing the use of deepfakes. The commission has highlighted that if additional regulatory responsibility for campaign material were given to a UK regulator, these powers would need careful consideration. Regulating the content of campaign material would require a new legal framework; the commission does not have experience or expertise of such a framework and believes such work would be better managed by other organisations.