The U.Ok. is forging forward with plans to make the act of making sexually specific “deepfake” photos a particular prison offence.
A deepfake refers to manipulated media, usually video or audio, created utilizing AI to make somebody seem to say or do one thing they didn’t.
The U.Ok. had already made sharing — and the specter of sharing — sexually specific deepfake content material an offence by way of the Online Safety Act that went into power final yr. But creating the content material itself was not lined. As such, the Ministry of Justice at the moment introduced plans to make the present guidelines extra holistic, protecting those that create it too — regardless of what position they play in any subsequent sharing.
The earlier Conservative U.Ok. authorities had detailed comparable plans, however with the arrival of the brand new authorities in July, it wasn’t sure what course Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s occasion would go, although Labour did pledge to fight deepfakes extra totally in its election manifesto. Starmer himself was truly topic to a deepfake video smear, the place his AI-likeness was seen selling an funding scheme.
The U.S. doesn’t have any particular legal guidelines in place to counter deepfakes, although a number of states are pushing for laws — together with California, which Elon Musk’s X is suing to stop the legislation from coming to fruition.
Online abuse
Technology has made it easer for laypeople to create deepfake imagery and audio for any objective, together with fraudulent exercise by means of impersonation scams. But with at the moment’s announcement, the U.Ok. authorities is specializing in sexually specific content material particularly, which it says disproportionately impacts ladies.
“It is unacceptable that one in three ladies have been victims of on-line abuse,” Parliamentary Under-Secretary Alex Davies-Jones mentioned in an announcement. “This demeaning and disgusting type of chauvinism should not change into normalised, and as a part of our Plan for Change we’re bearing down on violence in opposition to ladies – no matter kind it takes.”
The authorities additionally introduced plans to develop the scope of present legal guidelines across the taking of intimate photos with out consent, which is at the moment restricted to very particular conditions reminiscent of upskirting. For instance, anybody who installs tools, reminiscent of hidden cameras, for the aim of taking intimate photos might withstand two years in jail. (Upskirting refers to taking {a photograph} or video beneath an individual’s garments for the aim of viewing their underwear or genitals/buttocks with out their data or consent for sexual gratification or to trigger humiliation, misery or alarm.)
A selected timescale hasn’t been detailed on these varied modifications. However, the federal government mentioned that it could embrace them as a part of the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill, which will probably be launched “when parliamentary time permits.”
