Imprints
Published 12 February 2026
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Representation of the People Bill 2026: Imprints
We believe that any campaigner wishing to influence the electorate should be prepared to be transparent. Imprint rules play an important role in upholding trust in our democratic process by ensuring voters can see clearly who is behind political campaigning material. By improving transparency, streamlining enforcement, and making guidance more agile we will strengthen the integrity of political campaigning and ensure voters can continue to make informed decisions in elections and referendums.
Summary of the measures in the Bill
Improving transparency
Under existing rules, third party campaigners who spend under a certain threshold, are not required to include imprints on their organic digital campaigning material. This has created a loophole, allowing these third party campaign groups to disseminate potentially influential content without disclosing its origin.
To close this loophole, we will add any person who is a third party campaigner, but is not a recognised third party or an individual, to the list of entities who are required to include digital imprints on their organic digital campaigning material. This will ensure the digital imprint regime promotes greater accountability and public trust, while protecting free expression and avoiding undue burdens on individuals simply expressing their political opinions online.
Streamlining enforcement
We will streamline the enforcement of imprint rules by extending the Electoral Commission’s remit to be the primary enforcer of all imprint rules, with the ability to continue referring cases to the police for criminal investigation and prosecution where appropriate. This will overcome existing issues of confusion and risks of disproportionality which arise from the responsibility for enforcement currently being split between the police and the Electoral Commission.
Making guidance more agile
To improve the responsiveness and adaptability of digital imprint guidance, we will remove the mandatory involvement of the Secretary of State and Parliament in approving minor corrective changes, such as updating platform names, or fixing broken hyperlinks.