I am a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly with the Social Democratic and Labour Party. In 2022, during the Northern Ireland Assembly Election, I was targeted with a pornographic deepfake. This experience exposed a profound gap in support for those affected by technology-facilitated gender-based abuse.

Currently across the UK, victims are navigating this trauma without guidance, without proper recourse and without the systems in place to protect them. Unless we act now, technology will become yet another barrier driving women out of public life and deterring future female leaders from stepping forward.

I will be exploring research in Japan and Australia who are leading the way with robust victim support systems and pioneering policies that confront AI-related harms head-on. I will examine their approaches and return to the UK with a vision: a research-driven framework for an AI Ecosystem of Support that protects, empowers and restores dignity to victims and supports them with deepfake detection.