UK to make creating sexually explicit deepfakes new offence

LONDON: Britain plans to criminally charge people who create and share sexually explicit deepfake images to better protect women and girls, a minister said on Tuesday.

The government also plans to designate taking intimate images without consent and installing equipment to that end as new offences, with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison, the Ministry of Justice said.

It is already an offence in the UK to share or threaten to share intimate images, including deepfakes. But currently it is only an offence to create an image without consent in certain circumstances, such as so-called upskirting.

Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said “there are current gaps” in the law that the government was responding to.

“We´re making it more robust to protect women and girls,” she told Sky News, adding one in three women in the UK were victims of intimate images of them being made or shared in so-called “revenge porn” attacks.

“It´s awful. It´s horrific. It really, really makes women vulnerable, intimidates them, and these perpetrators of these crimes deserve to feel the full force of the law.”

The justice ministry noted “hyper-realistic” deepfakes have proliferated at “an alarming rate” in recent years, “causing devastating harm to victims”.

Deepfakes are images generated or edited using artificial intelligence (AI) featuring real people.

Experts warn an online boom in these non-consensual deepfakes is outpacing efforts to regulate the technology globally, with a proliferation of cheap AI tools including photo apps digitally undressing women.