New Legislation to Criminalise Sexual Deepfake Content

Felicity Wilson MP, Member for North Shore and Shadow Minister for Women, is calling for urgent action on sexually explicit deepfake material targeting women and girls. 

Increasingly, digitally manipulated images and videos are being produced with AI, often sexual in nature. Perpetrators will develop hyper-realistic fake material and edit young women into them. Reports have been filed from local teachers, young girls, and workers in NSW saying they have been the subject of these videos and images without their consent. 

Ms Wilson MP is putting forth new legislation to NSW Parliament to criminalise this behaviour. 

‘This isn’t a niche issue, this is happening in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our neighbourhoods. Deepfakes are traumatising women and girls by stripping them or their dignity, and right now our laws don’t protect them,’ said Ms Wilson MP. ‘Women and girls in the North Shore and across NSW deserve better. This Bill will help stop the abuse, hold perpetrators accountable, and protect people from this vile exploitation.’

The Crimes Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Bill 2024 will amend the Cries Act 1900. The Bill will deliver new offences for producing and/or distributing sexually explicit deepfakes, offences to cover threats to share deepfakes without consent, including private sharing, not just online distribution, court ordered removal and destruction of synthetic abuse material, and a legal definition of deepfakes as generating or altering the image that falsely depicts a real person in a sexual context.