The U.K. is forging ahead with plans to make the act of creating sexually explicit “deepfake” images a specific criminal offence.

A deepfake refers to manipulated media, often video or audio, created using AI to make someone appear to say or do something they didn’t.

The U.K. had already made sharing — and the threat of sharing — sexually explicit deepfake content an offence via the Online Safety Act that went into force last year. But creating the content itself was not covered. As such, the Ministry of Justice today announced plans to make the existing rules more holistic, covering those who create it too — irrespective of what role they play in any subsequent sharing.

The previous Conservative U.K. government had detailed similar plans, but with the arrival of the new government in July, it wasn’t certain what direction Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s party would go, though Labour did pledge to combat deepfakes more thoroughly in its election manifesto. Starmer himself was actually subject to a deepfake video smear, where his AI-likeness was seen promoting an investment scheme.

The U.S. doesn’t have any specific laws in place to counter deepfakes, though several states are pushing for legislation — including California, which Elon Musk’s X is suing to prevent the law from coming to fruition.

Online abuse

Technology has made it easer for laypeople to create deepfake imagery and audio for any purpose, including fraudulent activity through impersonation scams. But with today’s announcement, the U.K. government is focusing on sexually explicit content specifically, which it says disproportionately impacts women.

“It is unacceptable that one in three women have been victims of online abuse,” Parliamentary Under-Secretary Alex Davies-Jones said in a statement. “This demeaning and disgusting form of chauvinism must not become normalised, and as part of our Plan for Change we are bearing down on violence against women – whatever form it takes.”

The government also announced plans to expand the scope of existing laws around the taking of intimate images without consent, which is currently restricted to very specific situations such as upskirting. For example, anyone who installs equipment, such as hidden cameras, for the purpose of taking intimate images could face up to two years in prison. (Upskirting refers to taking a photograph or video underneath a person’s clothes for the purpose of viewing their underwear or genitals/buttocks without their knowledge or consent for sexual gratification or to cause humiliation, distress or alarm.)

A specific timescale hasn’t been detailed on these various changes. However, the government said that it would include them as part of the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill, which will be introduced “when parliamentary time allows.”