Enlarge image
Computer user: The manipulation of videos is often not recognizable at first glance
Photo: Isabell Höjman/TT / imago images/TT
The distribution of pornographic fake content, in which people are supposedly shown in an intimate way by means of image manipulation, is to become a criminal offense in Great Britain in the future.
"We must do more to protect women and girls from people who take intimate photos or manipulate them in order to humiliate them," Justice Minister Dominic Raab said in an announcement on the law change released on Friday.
Police and prosecutors should therefore be given the necessary powers to hold those responsible accountable and prevent such abuse.
The fact that people have to fear that deepfake recordings of them will be distributed is apparently becoming an increasing problem.
According to official figures, one in 14 adults in England and Wales has been threatened with being deepfaked.
The reform, which is designed as part of a so-called online security law, is also intended to criminalize the making of intimate recordings without the consent of those affected, for example with the help of hidden cameras.
According to the information, the measures take into account the concern that deepfake porn is increasingly being created with the help of special software.
These are pornographic videos in which the face of the victim is computer-generated and sometimes deceptively real in the moving image.
Olaf Scholz as a supposed Kremlin friend
The technology behind the deepfakes is based on so-called artificial intelligence (AI).
Nowadays it is easy to use, even for laypeople, and is increasingly delivering realistic results.
Apps installed millions of times make it possible to generate any fake videos for just a few euros - often all that is required is a portrait photo, as a joint research by Netzpolitik.org and SPIEGEL showed.
Deepfake videos, which were used to spread false reports, have caused a stir in recent years.
For example, a deepfake video was recently produced by Olaf Scholz (SPD), in which the Chancellor allegedly expressed criticism of America in the interests of the Russian government.
In principle, the apps can also be used to create harmless clips, for example by making yourself the star of an action film.
However, the apps hardly offer any protective mechanisms with which the applications cannot be misused for fake nude photos.
To this day, some offers even advertise that they can be used to generate porn recordings.
(Read more about the apps business model here.)
It was only this Thursday that the Hate Aid organization published a petition calling for the federal government to take stricter action against deepfake apps.
mak/dpa
