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Calls for Government to take urgent action as estimated half a million UK teenagers have encountered AI-generated nude deepfakes

Internet Matters Team | 22nd October, 2024
A teen girl looks at her smartphone.

Summary

Internet Matters, Britain’s leading not-for-profit supporting children’s online safety, is today (Tuesday 22nd October) publishing a new report, “The new face of digital abuse: Children’s experiences of nude deep fakes”. The report estimates that four children in every class of thirty have had some experience of ‘nudified deepfakes’ and calls on the Government to introduce new legislation to tackle the growth of generative AI (GenAI) fake nudes of young people, particularly girls, by banning so-called ‘nudifying’ apps.

The report explains the ways in which GenAI has made it quick, simple and cheap to produce non-consensual explicit imagery of ordinary people – including children. It argues that current legislation is not keeping pace; the AI models used to generate sexual imagery of children are currently not illegal in the UK, despite possession of a deepfake sexual image of a child being a criminal offence.

While deepfake technology can be used for positive purposes, such as education or training, evidence suggests that the majority of deepfakes are created to harm, including through sexual abuse, financially motivated sexual exploitation, mis- and disinformation, scams or fraud. Once a phenomenon largely aimed at female celebrities, the creation of fake nude images is something that is now more widely accessible and impacting children, with girls most likely to be the target.

Today’s Internet Matters report highlights how widely available and easy to use ‘nudifying’ tools have become to use online. An estimated 99% of nude deepfakes feature girls and women, and ‘nudifying’ models often don’t work on images of boys and men. AI-generated sexual images featuring children have been used to facilitate child-on-child sexual abuse, adult-perpetrated sexual abuse and sextortion and can impact victims profoundly, leading to the onset of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.

Teenage boys have used ‘nudification’ apps to generate sexually explicit images of their female classmates, often sharing these images on group chats and social media. Girls told Internet Matters they would feel horrified and ashamed and fear that a teacher or parent could think they were genuine.

Today’s report details an Internet Matters nationally representative survey of 2,000 parents of children aged 3-17 and 1,000 children aged 9-17 in the UKi, conducted by Opinium in June 2024. The survey shows:

The report argues for both new legislation and industry action to protect children from deepfake sexual abuse and argues that parents and schools cannot be expected to protect children alone. It calls for action, including:

To coincide with and support today’s report, Internet Matters is launching new resources including expert advice for parents on protecting children from deepfakes.

Carolyn Bunting MBE, co-CEO of Internet Matters, said:

“AI has made it possible to produce highly realistic deepfakes of children with the click of a few buttons. Nude deepfakes are a profound invasion of bodily autonomy and dignity, and their impact can be life shattering. With nudifying tools largely focussed on females, they are having a disproportionate impact on girls.

“Children have told us about the fear they have that this could happen to them without any knowledge and by people they don’t know. They see deepfake image-abuse as a potentially greater violation because it is beyond their control.

“Deepfake image abuse can happen to anybody, at any time. Parents should not be left alone to deal with this concerning issue. It is time for Government and industry to take action to prevent it by cracking down on the companies that produce and promote these tools that are used to abuse children.”

About the author

Internet Matters Team

Internet Matters Team

Internet Matters supports parents and professionals with comprehensive resources and expert guidance to help them navigate the ever-changing world of child internet safety.

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