This week, I have been working on a number of different issues to help keep children safe.
Artificial intelligence is developing extraordinarily rapidly. There has been an explosion in AI content, and the consequences of that in the dark world of child sexual abuse are devastating.
AI-generated images are becoming so widespread that when the Internet Watch Foundation conducted a snapshot study between September and October of just one dark web forum, it discovered that more than 20,000 AI-generated images of child sexual abuse had been uploaded in just that one month on that one forum. These images are now so realistic that it is incredibly difficult for law enforcement agencies to tell the difference between real images of real children, who need real safeguarding, and those that have been generated using AI.
I have championed the work of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) for over a decade. They specialise in taking images of child sexual abuse off the internet and helping to catch perpetrators.
There has been a huge rise in children being targeted in their homes and bedrooms to share sexual images and videos of themselves. Terrifyingly, last year IWF identified 2,401 of these images had involved children in the age range of three to six year olds. There has also been a increase rise in images being used for sextortion, especially targeting teenage boys. A sixteen year old in Wales recently died by suicide after becoming a victim of sextortion.
The IWF have identified two areas of our law which they believe urgently need updating. These are the existing laws covering paedophile manuals and sexual communication with a child. For example, whilst it is already illegal to communicate sexually with a child, it is not currently illegal to create and direct a bot to do so.
I worked with the IWF to draft amendments covering these issues to the Criminal Justice Bill which is going through Parliament. I presented these in the House of Commons on Wednesday. It is very good news that the Ministers have agreed to work with me and the IWF to fine tune the wording and introducing amendments into the Act as it proceeds through its next stages in Parliament.
I also spoke in a debate about Online Safety. I am working on a new private members bill to introduce safety by design into phones for children, including child safety measures at point of sale, controls at app stores to prevent children accessing age inappropriate apps and measures to prevent children from being able to upload sexual images. I would be very grateful for feedback from children and parents.
This week, I, and a number of other female MPs had their email accounts bombarded by an individual sharing photos of his genitalia. Too many young women and girls have been victims of cyber flashing. It is now illegal due to the new laws which came into force in January. I have notified the police. If you are a victim, please do report this crime, perpetrators must be prevented and prosecuted.
In a happier moment, I spent Thursday evening on call with our new Community First Responders (CFR) in their new Ambulance car. For over twenty years CFR volunteers have been trained in cardiac pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), using defibrillators and reacting to heart attacks. They are often based in more remote areas which an ambulance might not get to so quickly.
The new vehicle enables CFR volunteers to help support each other with training and keep skills up to date. It is based out of Chelmsford and is currently manned each evening. During my shift I saw how the team arrived at the scene very rapidly and then stabilised patients before handing over to the full ambulance crew. Thank you to our inspirational CPR volunteers.
Thank you also to members of our local Indian community for inviting me along to their annual Essex Badminton Championship at ARU. It was a huge amount of fun with people of all ages taking part. I understand that Badminton is a very popular community sport in India, and a super way to keep fit. It was great to meet some young Chelmsford teenagers who are playing at county level for Essex.
Thank you also to everyone who has filled in my local crime and safety survey. I have now worked with volunteers to deliver nearly 20,000 of these to individuals across Chelmsford and the feedback is helping me to encourage the police to focus on the issues that local people are most concerned about. If you have had a copy of the survey please do fill it in and return it. It is making a huge difference to helping keep Chelmsford a safe place.
