Parliament bans deepfake porn, perpetrators to face 7 years jail
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The news: People who create or share pornographic deep fakes without consent will face up to seven years in jail, under laws passed through Parliament.
The context: The laws make it a crime to share sexually-explicit deep fakes without consent, via private messaging, email or on public social media platforms. They cover images sent to another individual or to a mass audience.
A perpetrator who shares non-consensual deep fake pornography faces up to six years behind bars, with an additional year if they created it.
Experts feared ‘revenge porn’ laws had not kept pace with the advent of artificial intelligence, which has made the creation of deep fakes increasingly easy.
On Wednesday, parliament passed laws adding deep fakes to criminal code without amendments. There had been concerns that the previous framework did not give victims a legal expectation of privacy, because they may not have been involved in the creation of deep fakes in the first place.
In June, a Victorian teenager was arrested after allegedly creating artificially-generated sexual images of roughly 50 of his school peers. He was released without charge.
What they said: In a statement, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said: “This insidious behaviour can be a method of degrading, humiliating and dehumanising victims. Such acts are overwhelmingly targeted towards women and girls, perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes and contributing to gender-based violence”.
The source: AG Mark Dreyfus statement
