The CIPR is backing demands from MPs for the Government to create a national counter disinformation centre in response to growing concerns over the problem.
“Disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference should be viewed as an existential threat to the UK and its interests overseas,” according to a recently released report by the Foreign Affairs Committee.
It states that the Government has created “an unnecessarily fragmented approach” to tackling the problem, with a “system which seems to prioritise discussion and bureaucracy over action”.
The report calls for the Government to “establish a centralised National Counter Disinformation Centre to improve coordination and response”. The new centre should be “placed on a statutory footing and be subject to oversight by Parliament”.
“It should be tasked with understanding, identifying and combatting foreign information manipulation and interference campaigns being directed against the UK and its interests,” the report says.
Alastair McCapra, chief executive, CIPR, described the report as a “timely wake-up call”. He told In.Comms: “The growing threat of foreign state sponsored dis- and misinformation to our democracy makes a statutory National Counter Disinformation Centre both sensible and necessary.”
McCapra added that the Government’s response to the problem has been “fragmented and under-resourced” and that “a properly empowered body would be a significant step forward”.
However, he added that “tackling foreign disinformation while ignoring the vulnerabilities in our own system is only half the job”.
Foreign-based organisations are able to lobby Westminster “in complete secrecy”, while “scrutiny of large political donations remains woefully inadequate” and “businesses are held to higher standards in their communications than political parties”.
McCapra said: “If we are serious about protecting democratic integrity, we must confront opaque influence wherever it comes from – including within our own political system.”
The committee’s report also warns that there is “an apparent lack of public awareness about disinformation campaigns from foreign malign actors” and claims that public awareness campaigns “are under-utilised by the Government at present”.
It recommends that the Government launch a public awareness campaign about the risk of foreign information manipulation and interference.
Another issue it highlights is a lack of resources to fight disinformation. The report cites how the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has admitted that it is “limited by resourcing constraints”.
An increase in funding is needed, according to the report. “Given the importance of combatting foreign information manipulation and interference, it is unacceptable that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is presently under-resourced,” it states.
Gabriella Weiss Clarke, head of communications at the PRCA, welcomed the report as “a timely and important contribution to protecting public trust and the integrity of our democratic institutions”.
She added: “We support efforts to strengthen the UK's resilience in this area, particularly the proposed National Counter Disinformation Centre, provided it operates with robust transparency, clear accountability, and meaningful engagement with industry and civil society.
“Combating disinformation requires a whole-of-society approach, uniting communicators, industry, civil society and the public to build lasting resilience and preserve trust in credible information.”
Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has previously warned that levels of disinformation are a threat to the UK.
“The term disinformation does not begin to capture the industrial scale approach from some malign actors today,” she said in a speech last December.