Nudification apps facilitate digital sexual assault – and they should be banned

On 25 July, rules will finally come into force that restrict online pornography to over 18s and require pornography websites to verify the age of those using their platforms.

Overnight, all but the most determined and tech-savvy children will cease to be able to access pornography which has been proven to distort their perceptions of healthy sex and relationships and foster violence against women and girls.

Having campaigned for this change in the Online Safety Act alongside children’s sector charities and politicians across parties, I know what a watershed moment this is.

It represents a significant step in improving the safety of the online world for children. The recent agreement to ban sexual strangulation in pornography is another step forward and shows that this Labour Government is serious about protecting women and children online.

Tools to create deepfake nudes remain legal and cheap

We must be conscious of the fact, however, that in this digital age the progress we make to protect children from online harms can so quickly be outstripped by the speed of technological change and its ever-evolving risk.

The Online Safety Act first entered Parliament in March 2022, before the launch of ChatGPT and the increasing spread of AI into the hands of everyone with an internet connection.

One of the harms to emerge in recent years is that of ‘nude deepfakes’, the term given to AI-generated sexually-explicit images and videos. It is content that we have seen a 400% rise in the first half of this year.

Young people are being targeted by adverts on social media sites encouraging them to download apps on which you upload pictures of real people to nudify them or create pornographic videos through AI. This content is highly realistic and it is getting increasingly difficult to spot that it is fake.

It is already illegal to share nude deepfakes or create, share, or be in possession of a nude deepfake of a child and this Labour Government is making it a criminal offence to create sexually-explicit deepfake images without consent – but the tools and apps that generate this content remain legal and cheap; easy to use and easy to cause harm with.

The psychological toll on victims is huge

Over half a million children have already come into contact with AI-generated sexual images, according to recent estimates. There has also been polling, undertaken by Internet Matters, which shows that for most teenagers, having a nude deepfake created of themselves would feel worse than if a real nude image was shared. The psychological toll on victims is huge, with many reporting suicidal ideation. The internet being what it is, these highly realistic images circulate quickly across the globe, making it difficult to get them taken down.

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This is a threat that disproportionately affects girls; and, indeed, a study by Security Hero found that 99% of nude deepfakes are of women. There is no justification for the existence of these apps. They are used to digitally strip women and girls and should be seen for what they are: a tool for facilitating digital sexual assault.

Innovative AI has the potential to find us a cure for cancer and get us quicker health appointments, but when it is used to harm women and children, it is society that bears the wider cost, not tech companies. That’s why I hope the Government will look at banning nudification apps. 84% of teenagers and 80% of parents agree with a ban and it is vital that we get ahead of this new technological harm before it does any more damage.

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