To tackle the growing threat of sextortion, the Home Office is funding law enforcement capabilities to combat this crime, such as through investment in the National Crime Agency (NCA), who use their unique capabilities to disrupt the highest harm offenders, including those based overseas. The NCA is also a member of the Virtual Global Taskforce, which is an international alliance of 15 dedicated law enforcement agencies working together to tackle the global threat from all forms of child sexual abuse.

The Home Office also invests in a network of Undercover Online Officers in Regional Organised Crime Units to disrupt high harm offenders, including those seeking to groom or otherwise manipulate children into sharing sexual images.

The Online Safety Act protects citizens – especially children – from abuse and harm and applies to companies that provide user-to-user services and search services. It places robust duties on tech companies to prevent and swiftly remove illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, and to take proactive steps to protect children from harm. The strongest protections in the Act are for children.

Where a company fails to protect users, Ofcom will have a suite of enforcement powers such as issuing fines of up to 10% of their revenue and business disruption measures including blocking companies.

The Government will continue to engage with social media companies to make it clear they must act and implement robust detection measures to prevent their platforms being safe spaces for criminals.

This Government will continue to proactively review legislation, and we will not hesitate to legislate further to ensure the protection of children online.

A small number of cyber-attacks against National Health Service hospitals have been made public, but the specific details on the number, nature, and subsectors of NHS organisations that have been victims of a ransomware attack in the last twelve months cannot be released, as it may prejudice the prevention or detection of cyber-attacks against the NHS.

Our around-the-clock cyber monitoring across over 1.5 million NHS computers allows us to identify that ransomware is the most significant cyber security threat currently facing the health and social care sector. Automated cyber defences and monitoring by NHS England’s Cyber Operations teams continuously deter, prevent, and disrupt attempts to break into the NHS’ IT systems. The NHS implements the Government’s policy of not condoning ransom payment.

“Sextortion”, or blackmail involving the use of indecent or intimate images, is a horrific crime which the government is determined to tackle.

The Home Office is providing £150k in 2022/23 to the Revenge Porn Hotline to support victims of non-consensual intimate image sharing, colloquially known as “revenge porn”, which includes victims of “sextortion”.

The Government remains firmly committed to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse online, including cases involving “sextortion”. Our approach is underpinned by the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy which sets out firm commitments to drive action across the whole system. The Home Office invests in a number of capabilities to support law enforcement to tackle child sexual abuse.

The Home Office funds the National Crime Agency to use its unique capabilities to disrupt the highest harm child sexual abuse offenders and safeguard children. Since 2017, the Home Office has invested in a network of Undercover Online Officers in Regional Organised Crime Units to disrupt high harm offenders, including those seeking to groom or otherwise manipulate children into sharing sexual images.

We remain committed to continuing close collaboration with international partners to share best practice and insights and build international capacity to tackle all forms of child exploitation and abuse, including “sextortion”.

The Home Office collects data on the number of fraud and computer misuse cases reported to Action Fraud that have been recorded as crimes by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB). Information on the number of reports of fraud that were not subsequently recorded as crimes is not held.

Action Fraud reports of fraud and computer misuse offence are published by the ONS quarterly in the Crime in England and Wales tables, which can be found at this link: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables

Table A5 presents these offences by type of fraud committed.

The Government does not advise paying ransoms to criminals. The payment of a ransom to criminals is likely to encourage further criminal activity and does not guarantee a successful outcome.

The legal decision of whether or not to pay the ransom is ultimately a matter for the individuals or organisations concerned. We encourage victims of ransom demands to contact the authorities for support. An offence may arise from a possibility of money laundering or terrorist financing taking place as a result of a ransom payment.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) produces country-specific travel advice for British nationals. The travel advice for China and Iran contains specific information for British dual nationals. The FCO advises British-Iranian dual nationals against all travel to Iran. The assistance the FCO can provide to British nationals is set out in the public guide, "Support for British nationals abroad: a guide", which also contains information on how we can help dual nationals. Consular assistance is tailored to the individual circumstances of each case, though the FCO cannot normally help dual nationals when they are in the country of their other nationality. Further advice for British-Chinese dual nationals in China is also available on GOV.UK.

Information regarding prosecutions and convictions for blackmail offences from 2010 to 2018 can be found at the following link –

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/802314/outcomes-by-offence-tool-2018.xlsx

Filter the ‘Offence’ field to ’35 Blackmail’ to obtain these figures. The total number of defendants proceeded against as well as those convicted of blackmail for the 2008-2018 decade will appear in the pivot table.

However, specific information regarding blackmail offences, such as the offence of blackmail against people that demanded money to leave sites which they were occupying illegally, may be held on court record. But to be able to identify these cases, as they are not held centrally, we would have to access individual court records which would be of disproportionate cost.

We are aware of documents purporting to show records of private conversations that have been circulating on social media in Sudan. It is not possible to ascertain the veracity of these documents. The UK continues to press all sides to engage with AU-led international mediation efforts, and to negotiate in good faith to reach a lasting peace agreement in Sudan's conflict areas.