The Government recognises that online platforms are significant enablers of sexual exploitation. They must be responsible and held accountable for content on their sites, including taking proactive steps to prevent their sites being used by criminals. Victims of sexual exploitation make up a notable proportion of referrals to the National Referral Mechanism. The most recent annual statistics show that in 2025, sexual exploitation (either partly or wholly) accounted for 15% (3,607) of all referrals.

In December 2025, the Government committed within the “Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls”, to address many aspects of prostitution and sexual exploitation within England and Wales. Commitments include reviewing legislation, raising awareness among frontline agencies of what constitutes adult sexual exploitation, and strengthening police disruption of sexual exploitation. Further details on each of these commitments will be announced in due course.

The Government is also working closely with law enforcement to tackle the drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation, including through operational activity aimed at tackling modern slavery threats, ensuring they have the tools they need to disrupt sexual exploitation facilitated online and targeting prolific perpetrators.

This financial year (2026/2027) the Home Office is providing over £10.7m to the Tackling Organised Exploitation (TOEX) Programme to improve the law enforcement response across a number of threat areas, including modern slavery and human trafficking, organised immigration crime, county lines, adult and child sexual abuse and exploitation. This funding is used to deliver a range of specialist intelligence and analytical capabilities across threats, including supporting law enforcement partners with an adult service website referral pilot, where adverts are referred to TOEX to support operational activity.

The Online Enablers Working Group, previously the Adult Services Website Working Group, is a multi-agency working group. The working group comprises of law enforcement, policing, policy officials and regulators, including the National Crime Agency, Home Office officials, police officers, TOEX and Ofcom. The Home Office does not intend to publish information or documents from meetings, as this could undermine future policy development.

The Home Office has provided dedicated funding to support law enforcement agencies to purchase software licenses to identify and tackle sexual exploitation as part of routine work and project work in the following financial years:

• In 2021/2022- £100,000 was made available to police forces in England and Wales
• Between 2022 and 2026, the Modern Slavery Fund supported the provision of software licences to international law enforcement partners in Romania and Brazil, with a total of £98,608 (mostly Official Development Assistance) allocated over this period. This activity aimed to strengthen the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct more effective and timely investigations, improving the identification and safeguarding of victims of sexual exploitation trafficked across routes linking Brazil, Romania and the UK.
• In 2025/2026 – £356,000 was given to Bedfordshire police to pilot a national law enforcement hub for tackling sexual exploitation. Approximately £7,000 of this was made available to spend on licenses.

The Home Office has not issued advice to police forces on the activation of specific facial recognition functions within surveillance software.

The use of facial recognition technology by police forces is an operational matter for chief constables, who are responsible for deciding how and when to deploy capabilities in accordance with the law and relevant guidance.

Police use of facial recognition is governed by a legal framework which includes data protection, equality, human rights laws, national guidance issued by the College of Policing, a surveillance camera code of practice and forces’ own published policies. Their use of the technology must be for a policing purpose and be necessary, proportionate and fair.

The Government prioritises national security and does not routinely provide details on operational matters or specific threats.

The Home Office works closely with the National Technical Authorities, Police Digital Service, National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), alongside other Government Departments, to fully understand and address cyber vulnerabilities, proportional to the threat.

Guidance provided covered proportionate risk-based measures on the in-life management, data handling, and disposal of Connected Vehicles. We will continue to work with partners to ensure the guidance remains up to date and that forces follow guidance appropriately.

As noted in Question 121206 the Government prioritises national security and does not routinely provide details on operational matters or specific threats.

The Home Office works closely with the National Technical Authorities, Police Digital Service, National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), alongside other Government Departments, to fully understand and address cyber vulnerabilities, proportional to the threat. This collaborative effort covers all connected vehicles, including those using Chinese software

The government will continue to promote good practice in cybersecurity, support transparency on data collection and usage, and coordinate with the transport sector to strengthen the security of vehicles.

NPCC have shared guidance to all Chief Constables on understanding and effectively managing risks from Connected Vehicles. We will continue to work with partners to ensure the guidance remains up to date and that forces follow guidance appropriately.

Police forces are operationally independent; this includes the procurement and use of vehicles. The Home Office does not routinely collect information on vehicle types within Police fleets.

The Home Office works closely with the National Technical Authorities, Police Digital Service, National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), alongside other Government Departments, to fully understand and address cyber vulnerabilities, proportional to the threat. This collaborative effort covers all connected vehicles, including those using Chinese software

NPCC have shared guidance to all Chief Constables on understanding and effectively managing risks from Connected Vehicles. We will continue to work with partners to ensure the guidance remains up to date and that forces follow guidance appropriately.

The Government prioritises national security and does not routinely provide details on operational matters or specific threats.

The Home Office works closely with the National Technical Authorities, Police Digital Service, National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), alongside other Government Departments, to fully understand and address cyber vulnerabilities, proportional to the perceived threat. This collaborative effort covers all connected vehicles, including those using Chinese software

The government will continue to promote good practice in cybersecurity, support transparency on data collection and usage, and coordinate with the transport sector to strengthen the security of vehicles.

NPCC have shared guidance to all Chief Constables on understanding and effectively managing risks from Connected Vehicles. We will continue to work with partners to ensure the guidance remains up to date and that forces follow guidance appropriately.

That is a very good idea—I have had similar issues in my own constituency. I will make sure that that idea is passed on to the Home Secretary. Police reforms will be coming to the House shortly.

Boots has stores in Castlepoint, Southbourne Grove and Boscombe high street in my constituency. I met Boots in Parliament to hear about what it is doing to tackle shoplifting. In London, it is working with the Metropolitan police, who plug into Boots’s own reporting system to avoid the need for duplicate reporting. I am calling for the same to come to Bournemouth, but plugging all businesses into all police forces will take a lot of work. Will the Government consider having a national police app that is opt-in, like the national health service app, so people do not have to go through the faff of reporting their demographic information and so they can get on with reporting crime faster? That would be a lot of help to Karl, the store manager at Aldi in Boscombe.

Police forces and Policing and Crime Commissioners are responsible for their procurement and commercial strategies for Records Management Systems.

Each force is responsible for evaluating the performance of their Record Management System in line with those strategies and their local requirements.

It would not be appropriate for the Home Office to comment on the individual performance of one supplier in relation to the factors mentioned.

Police forces and Policing and Crime Commissioners are responsible for their procurement and commercial strategies for Records Management Systems.

Each force is responsible for evaluating the performance of their Record Management System in line with those strategies and their local requirements.

It would not be appropriate for the Home Office to comment on the individual performance of one supplier in relation to the factors mentioned.

Police forces and Policing and Crime Commissioners are responsible for their procurement and commercial strategies for Records Management Systems.

Each force is responsible for evaluating the performance of their Record Management System in line with those strategies and their local requirements.

It would not be appropriate for the Home Office to comment on the individual performance of one supplier in relation to the factors mentioned.

Police forces and Policing and Crime Commissioners are responsible for their procurement and commercial strategies for Records Management Systems.

Each force is responsible for evaluating the performance of their Record Management System in line with those strategies and their local requirements.

It would not be appropriate for the Home Office to comment on the individual performance of one supplier in relation to the factors mentioned.

Police forces and Policing and Crime Commissioners are responsible for their procurement and commercial strategies for Records Management Systems.

Each force is responsible for evaluating the performance of their Record Management System in line with those strategies and their local requirements.

It would not be appropriate for the Home Office to comment on the individual performance of one supplier in relation to the factors mentioned.

Police forces and Policing and Crime Commissioners are responsible for their procurement and commercial strategies for Records Management Systems.

Each force is responsible for evaluating the performance of their Record Management System in line with those strategies and their local requirements.

It would not be appropriate for the Home Office to comment on the individual performance of one supplier in relation to the factors mentioned.