Legislators, legal experts, and one victim who is now pushing for a federal bill all agree that teenage girls in the U.S. who are increasingly being singled out or threatened with fake nude photos made with artificial intelligence or other tools have few options for seeking redress or accountability because schools and state legislatures are still catching up to the new technologies.
Cases involving teenage females who were duped by deepfakes, or fake nude images, have sprung up all over the country since the 2023 school year began, notably in high schools in Washington and New Jersey.
Legislators are rushing to pass new laws that would impose penalties on the photographers of the images, local police departments are looking into the instances, and the families of those impacted are demanding explanations and remedies.
Source : NBC NEWS
Using basic photo-editing software that has been around for years, one can create very convincing deepfakes. NBC News was informed by two school districts, however, that they think the phoney images of teenagers that have impacted their children were created by AI.
Stable diffusion—an open-source system that generates visuals based on text prompts—and “face-swap” tools—which replace a pornographic performer’s face in a video or picture with the face of a victim—are examples of AI technology that is becoming more accessible.
Apps that claim to “undress” images of people wearing clothing have also been recognised as potential tools in certain situations and may be downloaded for free from app stores. These days, deepfakes may seem more realistic and be more difficult to spot as fake right away.
Francesca Mani, 15, a student at Westfield High School in New Jersey, stated, “I didn’t know how complex and scary AI technology is.” On October 20, more than thirty females discovered that they could have been featured in explicit, artificial intelligence (AI)-manipulated photos.
She said, “I was shocked because our classmates betrayed me and the other girls, which means it could happen to anyone by anyone.”
Legal experts and politicians claim that victims of deepfake and AI-generated pornography—which often features a victim’s face attached to a nude body—have few, if any, options for seeking justice.
The technology to create them has advanced and become more widely available, and Mary Anne Franks, a legal specialist on nonconsensual sexually explicit media, claims that the images and films may be startlingly lifelike.
Francesca and her mother, Dorota Mani, said that they are still unsure of the names of the individuals responsible for creating the photographs, their quantity, and whether or not they still exist, one month after the Westfield High School event. Furthermore, it’s not apparent what sanctions, if any, the educational system applied.
Westfield Public Schools was contacted by the Town of Westfield for comment; they refused. In an earlier statement to NBC New York, the school district said that it “would not release any information about the students accused of creating the fake nude photos, or what discipline they are facing,” citing confidentiality.
The district will “continue to strengthen our efforts by educating our students and establishing clear guidelines to guarantee that these new technologies are used responsibly in our schools and beyond,” Superintendent Raymond Gonzalez told the news site.
The high school administrator, Mary Asfendis, informed parents via email on October 20 that the school was looking into student allegations that some of their friends had utilised artificial intelligence (AI) to make pornographic pictures from original photographs. NBC News was able to receive this email.
According to the document, school authorities at the time thought that any produced photographs had been removed and were not being shared.
Asfendis stated, “This is a very serious incident,” and advised parents to talk to their kids about how they use computers. “Students need to understand the impact and damage that their actions can cause to others, as new technologies have made it possible to falsify images.”
The principal of Westfield informed Francesca’s mother that four individuals had identified her as a victim, even though Francesca hasn’t seen the photograph of herself or any others. Although Francesca has filed a police complaint, inquiries for comment were not answered by the prosecutor’s office or the Westfield Police Department.
The event, according to New Jersey state senator Jon Bramnick, raised fears among law enforcement that it would simply amount to a “cyber-type harassment claim, even though it really should reach the level of a more serious crime.”
“In my opinion, it is child pornography when a nude body is attached to a child’s face,” he said.
The Republican legislator said that while the harm caused by actual or altered photographs may be the same, state laws do not already go far enough to penalise the material makers.
They are victimised in a similar manner to those who trade in child pornography. Not only does it offend the young person, but it also denigrates them. Furthermore, you never know what will happen to that picture,” he said. “Once it’s transmitted, you never know where it will be or when it will return to haunt the little girl.”
According to Bramnick, a proposed state law in New Jersey would outlaw deepfake pornography and penalise both criminal and civil cases for nonconsensual publication. According to the measure, a guilty party may spend three to five years in prison and/or be fined $15,000, he added.
According to Franks, a law professor and the head of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, an organisation that fights nonconsensual porn, if the bill is approved, New Jersey would join at least ten other states that have passed laws aimed against deepfakes.
The breadth of state legislation aimed at combating deepfakes varies greatly. Certain states, such as Texas and Wyoming, have made it illegal to deepfake pornography without consent. Certain states, such as New York, have regulations limiting the victims’ ability to file a civil lawsuit.
According to Franks, the laws are “all over the place,” incoherent, and their legality has been questioned.
As the offenders in many instances will likely be children, “you’ve got a patchwork of criminal charges, which are going to be difficult, so that raises its own questions,” the speaker said.
“This is probably just the very beginning.” deepfake
The number of youths who have been harmed by AI-generated nudes is unknown.
The FBI said that it is challenging to estimate the quantity of children who are sexually abused. However, the organisation said that the quantity of unresolved cases pertaining to crimes against minors has increased. The FBI informed NBC News that there were over 4,800 instances in 2022, up from over 4,100 the previous year.
The FBI stated that it “takes crimes against children seriously” and that it “works to investigate the facts of each allegation in a collective effort with our state, local, and tribal law enforcement partners.” It also stated that victims may encounter difficult obstacles in their attempts to have the image taken down from the internet or to stop its spread.
According to Franks, there are probably a lot more occurrences and that number will only rise.
She said, “Whatever we’re hearing about that comes to light is most likely only the tip of the iceberg.” “It’s likely that quite a bit of this is occurring at the moment, and the school is hiding it or the girls haven’t learned about it yet.”
According to a district spokesman at Washington’s Issaquah High School, a mid-October event “involving fake, AI-generated imagery of students” is still having an impact on the student body.
Using an app that can “undress” images of people wearing clothing, moms in the Spanish municipality of Almendralejo claim that hundreds of their middle school-aged daughters have been victimised by AI-generated nude photos. The high school instances are being investigation by local authorities in Spain, Washington, and New Jersey.
The FBI issued a warning in a June public service broadcast on the advancement of technology that produces deepfakes and other nonconsensual sexual images and films, and how it may be exploited for extortion and harassment.
In the meanwhile, in September, the National Association of Attorneys General urged Congress to research the impact of AI on children and develop laws that would shield them from such mistreatment.
54 state and territory solicitors general expressed their concerns in a letter, stating that they were worried about how “AI is creating a new frontier for abuse that makes prosecution more difficult.”
The letter said, “We are in a race against time to protect our country’s children from the dangers of AI.”
In order to personally persuade Congress members to take action, Francesca and her mother stated they want to go to Washington, D.C. in December. They continue to push for revised school system regulations and demand responsibility for the events that transpired.
Dorota Mani said, “We all know this is not an isolated incident.” “It won’t ever be a singular occurrence. This will continue to occur on a regular basis. We must no longer act as if it is unimportant.#deepfake
High school females are the subject of an increasing number of cases, which coincide with the growth of deepfake applications and deepfake porn websites that produce, distribute, and sell fake content.
Sensity, an Amsterdam-based startup that monitors AI-generated media, said in 2019 that 96% of the deepfakes developed up to that time contained women who had not given their permission and were sexually explicit. Many victims are ignorant of the existence of deepfakes.
According to Franks, there is nothing that parents and kids can do to stop deepfakes from being made with their images. Rather, Franks said that in order to deter people from producing deepfakes, local law enforcement and educational institutions should hold offenders in high regard when their crimes are made public.#deepfake
Franks said, “You might get the discouragement if you could imagine a dramatic and important response from the school in New Jersey or from the authorities in New Jersey to make an example out of the case, really strict penalties, people go to jail.”
“If that doesn’t happen, it will just become another weapon that men and boys use against women and girls in order to degrade and abuse them, and the law won’t really be able to address it.”
