The Liberal Democrats have announced plans for a new £250 million-a-year Online Crime Agency funded by a levy on major technology and artificial-intelligence companies.
The proposed national agency would employ hundreds of specialist officers to investigate serious crimes committed or facilitated online, including child sexual abuse, the trafficking of drugs and weapons, and sexually explicit deepfake images generated using AI.
Home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson unveiled the policy at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton on Monday, arguing that technology companies should meet the cost of tackling crimes enabled through their platforms and services.
The agency has not been established and the levy is not current Government policy. Both form part of a Liberal Democrat proposal which would require the party to secure sufficient political support and pass the necessary legislation before either could take effect.
Big Tech and AI companies would fund agency
Under the party's plan, the Online Crime Agency would be funded entirely through a new Online Crime Levy imposed on large technology and AI businesses.
The principal charge would take the form of a 0.4 per cent surcharge on the existing Digital Services Tax, with the tax widened to bring generative-AI activities within its scope.
The Liberal Democrats estimate that the surcharge would raise £220 million during 2026/27 even before the proposed extension to generative AI was taken into account.
They project annual receipts rising to £270 million by 2029/30, providing almost £1 billion for the agency by early 2030.
The figures are Liberal Democrat costings rather than an independent Treasury forecast. Detailed legislation would also need to define which AI activities and companies would fall within the expanded tax.
Additional charge where offences go unreported
The party would supplement the general levy with what it describes as a harm-weighted charge.
This additional payment would apply to every substantiated case in which a company's service was involved and the business failed to report the suspected offence.
The Liberal Democrats say that linking part of the charge to individual cases would give platforms a direct financial incentive to invest in preventing, detecting and reporting criminal activity.
The party has not yet published the full legal framework that would determine when a case had been substantiated, what reporting standard companies would be expected to meet or how individual charges would be calculated.
Hundreds of specialist officers promised
The proposed agency would recruit hundreds of officers with specialist expertise and invest in technology capable of investigating sophisticated online offending.
It would also provide training for local police forces so that potential cases could be identified earlier and referred for specialist investigation.
Wilkinson argued that neighbourhood officers were being diverted from local priorities to handle complex online cases for which they had not received specialist training.
He said creating a dedicated national body would allow local forces to concentrate more resources on offences such as shoplifting, bicycle theft and mobile-phone theft.
The party compared the proposed £250 million annual budget with the National Crime Agency's £835 million budget for 2024/25, saying the new investment would be equivalent to an increase of more than a quarter.
Agency would target most serious online offences
The Liberal Democrats say the agency's work would include tackling online child sexual abuse material, AI-generated sexually explicit deepfakes and internet-based trafficking in illegal drugs and weapons.
The party cited figures showing that 42 per cent of recorded child sexual abuse offences in England and Wales are now facilitated online, while referrals increased by 31 per cent in 2025 compared with the preceding two years.
It also pointed to warnings from the Internet Watch Foundation that increasingly realistic AI-generated images are contributing to reports of child sexual abuse material.
The National Crime Agency's 2026 strategic assessment concluded that technological change is no longer simply enabling serious organised crime but transforming its scale, reach and sophistication.
The assessment said accessible AI tools were lowering barriers to offending and had already become particularly visible in the production of realistic child sexual abuse material and increasingly effective fraud.
Wilkinson says technology firms must pay
Wilkinson accused major technology companies of taking a "slope-shouldered approach" to serious online offending and said it was time for them to meet the bill for a dedicated police agency.
He said victims across the country were paying the price for an explosion in online crime and argued that specialist investigators were urgently needed to tackle child sexual abuse and the online trafficking of drugs and weapons.
The announcement develops a policy the Liberal Democrats have promoted for several years. The party previously called for an Online Crime Agency focused on fraud, threats, incitement and other illegal online activity, but the latest proposal adds a detailed funding mechanism and an expanded emphasis on generative AI.
Proposal, not an established agency
No new police organisation has yet been created and businesses are not currently paying the proposed Online Crime Levy.
The immediate significance of the announcement is that the Liberal Democrats have set out how they would finance the agency, which offences it would prioritise and how it would interact with local police forces.
Introducing the plan nationally would require decisions about the agency's statutory powers, its relationship with the National Crime Agency and regional forces, the businesses covered by the levy and the safeguards governing investigations into online communications.
Sources
- Liberal Democrats: Big Tech should fund new police agency to tackle serious online crimes — 20 September 2026
- The Guardian: Lib Dems propose Big Tech levy to fund £250m Online Crime Agency — 20 September 2026
- National Crime Agency: National Strategic Assessment 2026 — serious and organised crime summary
- Liberal Democrats: Earlier Online Crime Agency proposal — 31 January 2025