Written evidence submitted by Vijay Rangarajan, chief Executive of the Electoral Commission (DIS0055)
Emily Thornberry MP DBE Chair
Foreign Affairs Committee House of Commons London
SW1A 0AA
28 January 2026
Dear Chair,
Additional Electoral Commission information for the Foreign Affairs Committee
Thank you again for the opportunity to give evidence to the Committee’s inquiry into
Disinformation Diplomacy.
During my evidence, I said I would follow up on a couple of points in writing, as well as in response to further questions the Committee did not have time to ask. I have set out further information on each of these points below.
Many of these points relate to the role of social media platforms in tackling online harms to democracy. I therefore welcome your call for the platforms to appear before the Committee and give evidence on the role they play. We have called for action from the platforms to foster a healthy democratic debate in interventions to the Speaker’s Conference and the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.
1. Use of bots to amplify narratives during elections
I share the committee’s concerns about the use of bots to amplify misleading narratives online, particularly during election periods. As I outlined to the committee, the primary method of addressing this issue is through the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which has the capability to monitor bot activity and work to take down illegal content.
We are discussing with social media companies how best we can engage with them around mis- and disinformation about the electoral process, and about content that goes against their electoral integrity policies. Where content is misleading about the electoral process, we can flag it directly with platforms for it to be taken down. Alongside this, as outlined below, we are also deploying a new deepfake pilot tool to detect and monitor deepfakes used during the May election campaign this year. We carry out scenario planning ahead of all elections, including how we would handle misinformation from bots – and the circumstances in which we would make a public announcement. We were prepared to do this before the 2024 General Election, but it is not something we have so far needed to do.
2. The Commission’s engagement with international electoral authorities
I mentioned the work we are doing with our counterparts to address the shared challenge of disinformation. This has included meetings with electoral commissions in Norway, Sweden and South Korea, as well as Ukraine – with whom last year we signed a Memorandum of Understanding, jointly committing to safeguard democratic processes. This engagement with countries with shared challenges is key to informing our responses to disinformation.
We are looking to further build our capacity to engage with and learn from our international counterparts. In particular, we are establishing a monitoring capability, to identify developments, provide analysis and brief teams across the organisation. This year, we are also hosting the annual Four Countries Conference, alongside the Australian Electoral Commission, the Electoral Commission of New Zealand and Elections Canada, to share information about our respective approaches to protect electoral integrity. They have huge expertise and experience – we hope to do an event in Parliament during the conference, and would be delighted if you could attend.
3. PACAC’s recommendations on working with Ofcom on candidate security
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) recommended in its review of the 2024 general election that Ofcom, in coordination with the Electoral Commission, set out a timescale for setting up arrangements to address online abuse and intimidation at elections.
We work closely with Ofcom to address these shared threats, and meet regularly with them, including as part of the regulators forum which we convene. We welcomed the clear recommendations made by PACAC, as well as the further work carried out by the Speaker’s Conference, which we have responded to, setting out our position and the work we are doing. I will share our formal response with you once it has been published.
In particular, we recommended the Government considers creating a clearer new overarching duty on platforms operating in the UK to cover a wider range of risks to elections, to ensure they take action to mitigate risks and protect legitimate political debate, particularly during critical election periods. This would help provide clarity and a shared understanding of what actions are needed by platforms during elections. It would also provide a clearer basis for Ofcom to take enforcement action if platforms do not take appropriate actions themselves.
The Scottish Parliament has developed a scheme to protect elected representatives from online abuse. We recently saw this in action on a visit to the Scottish Parliament, and the work of that team is impressive. The model uses targeted keywords and location data
to identify potentially abusive content, and can track patterns of abuse from the same individual. This intelligence is used to report abuse to the police and has already led to a conviction for abusive behaviour.
We think this model could be rolled out across the UK. I understand the UK Parliament already monitors open sources to refer potentially actionable material to social media platforms and the police, and we are aware that the Senedd is also running a trial of a similar model to monitor threats against Members.
Ahead of the May elections, we are also launching a pilot to test a deepfake detection tool, focusing on misleading content about the electoral process. The pilot will assess whether suspected videos are deepfakes, analyse their impact on public sentiment, track trends, and
inform appropriate regulatory or enforcement action with partners such as Ofcom or the police.
4. Legislation required to combat platform algorithmic bias
Finally, I mentioned some of the legislative gaps in this area. Misleading content about candidates is not considered an offence outside of the regulated period. Under current legislation, s106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (False statement as to candidates) may cover deepfakes, but is currently only enforceable during the regulated period. An example of this is the recent George Freeman MP AI deepfake video. The police were unable to prosecute under s106, because it fell outside of the regulated period.
Similarly, we are concerned that platform algorithms could be used in a partisan way to amplify or suppress political party posts to influence an election. We have raised concerns about the role algorithms play in amplifying content during election periods, particularly when a social media company provides a material advantage to certain parties by allowing algorithms to provide higher visibility to those parties’ posts. There is currently nothing in legislation which addresses this issue, or requires platforms to provide transparency over their algorithms. Our response to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s inquiry into social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms sets out our full position, including our calls to social media companies to make transparent their algorithms.
As I mentioned in my evidence to the Committee, the foreign interference offence in the National Security Act, a priority offence under the Online Safety Act, will come into play in instances of overt interference by a foreign agent, and those will be for the security services to deal with.
5. Crypto asset donation guidance
I also wanted to note that since I gave evidence, we have published further interim guidance on our website about the use of crypto assets in political donations. This guidance focuses
on permissibility and reporting requirements under current law, and is designed to support the regulated community in reporting donations accurately to provide voters with transparency.
We are continuing to work with experts and other regulators, and are developing full, comprehensive guidance on crypto assets, which will be published later this year. I trust this will be of interest to your committee, and I will continue to keep you updated.
I hope that the above helps with your inquiry. Please don’t hesitate to reach out for any further
clarification, if needed. Yours sincerely,
Vijay Rangarajan
28 January 2026