In recent years, we’ve seen an impressive improvement in the development of artificial intelligence, which also has led to the creation of deepfakes. Deepfakes are fake images, videos or audio recordings created to appear as realistic as possible. While deepfake technology can create harmless content, for example satire, 98% of all deepfake videos online are sexually explicit. This article will explore how deepfakes pose a risk to our fundamental human rights and how national lawmakers are trying to combat them
Deepfakes as a Threat to Human Rights
Deepfake pornography creates a conflict between freedom of speech and the right to privacy. Deepfake technology is a new phenomenon and therefore a consensus on how human rights are being threatened has yet to be reached. Some scholars are trying to prove that deepfake pornography creates at least an adverse impact on human rights, by applying the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights’ case law.
A recent study found that nonconsensual sexual deepfakes could pose a significant threat to the rights protected by the Convention. Deepfakes can harm the right to respect private and family life, specifically by undermining data protection, harming one’s image and reputation, and compromising psychological integrity and personal autonomy.
Testimonies of victims of deepfake pornography often show that they experience similar psychological harms to those affected by sexual abuse. Deepfake pornography targets their reputation and makes them feel as though they have lost control over their identity [1].
Gender equality is also one of the aspects that is being challenged by deepfake pornography. This is because victims in 99% of cases are women who have their images or videos created and shared without their consent. Deepfakes don’t create disparities only between genders, but also between age groups. Younger generations are getting access to deepfake technologies, resulting in bullying tactics that target young girls in the school environment [2].
Why Is Making Deepfakes So Easy?
In the past, creating fake content was quite a tedious task. In order to make a fake image or to make a video look real, the creator had to be skilled in editing and have financial resources for a computer program. Today’s deepfake tools (applications or web-based platforms) offer their users the ability to create deepfake adult content for free. A 60-second video can be made in under 25 minutes with just one clear facial image of a person.
How Are Legislators Catching Up?
Deepfakes have been recognized as a danger to individuals’ freedoms [3]. Chatrooms on social media platforms like Telegram and Discord have played a big part in spreading harmful content, which resulted in media scandals that brought the problem to light.
So far, South Korea has been the most progressive in passing such criminal laws. The new legislation, introduced in 2024, bans the creation, possession, viewing, and distribution of sexual digital forgeries. A violation of these laws is punishable by imprisonment or fines with the maximum prison term of 7 years.
Other countries are also moving forward in this matter and drafting laws that ban deepfake pornography explicitly. In May 2025, Donald Trump signed the federal “Take It Down” Act, which prohibits computer-generated nonconsensual sexual images of individuals and requires platforms to remove such depictions within 48 hours of notification. The maximum prison term for committing a federal crime is 3 years, which applies if the victim is a minor. Individual U.S. states can criminalize deepfake porn differently and in some states, the penalties can be stricter. For example in Louisiana, the maximum prison sentence is 30 years.
On the other side, the European regulation is very broad and general. The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the AI Act provide some protection against deepfakes, mainly by obligating providers of AI systems to mark content as AI-generated. DSA further requires that digital platforms identify and remove illegal content. Deepfake pornography is unfortunately not explicitly addressed, and it therefore lies with each European country to investigate and punish perpetrators.
The Czech Parliament is currently drafting a law that introduces a new criminal offence under the existing crime of “Infringement of others’ rights”. Those who create, publish or distribute deepfake pornography with the intent to cause serious injury to the rights of another, could be punished with up to two years in prison. While the proposition is welcomed, the lawmakers cannot reach a consensus on the final text of the law. With the upcoming parliamentary elections in October, the law most likely won’t get passed by the end of this term.
The Challenges of Criminalizing Deepfakes
While criminalization is the ultimate legal goal to protect victims’ rights, passing strong laws doesn’t mean we have succeeded just yet. Since the majority of the crimes occur in the digital space, police investigation needs to evolve at the same pace as technology does. Prosecution also holds a lot of power in assessing which acts are the most dangerous to society, as a lot of people can commit deepfake crimes by just resending a photo on a social media platform. Juvenile justice will also need to adjust to a new wave of cybercrime, especially when it comes to proving guilt and sentencing.
Hopefully, criminalization of deepfake pornography will soon become a standard worldwide. It is necessary to protect the victims and understand how the perpetrators of deepfake crime behave in order to prevent such criminal activity.
Notes
[1] See Rousay, V. (2023). Sexual Deepfakes and Image-Based Sexual Abuse: Victim-Survivor Experiences and Embodied Harms. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370324689_Sexual_Deepfakes_and_Image-Based_Sexual_Abuse_Victim-Survivor_Experiences_and_Embodied_Harms.
[2] For example, Australian schools reported multiple instances where explicit fake photographs were shared.
[3] See European Parliamentary Research Service. (2021). Tackling deepfakes in European policy. Available at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2021/690039/EPRS_STU(2021)690039_EN.pdf.
Sources
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Government of the United Kingdom. (2025, January). Government crackdown on explicit deepfakes [press release]. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-crackdown-on-explicit-deepfakes.
McGlynn, C. & Toparlak, R. T. (2025). The ‘new voyeurism’: criminalizing the creation of ‘deepfake porn’. Journal of Law and Society, Volume 52 (Issue 2), Pages 204-228.
Security Hero. 2023 state of deepfakes. Available at https://www.securityhero.io/state-of-deepfakes/.
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Whitson, R. (2024, June). Principals say parents need to be vigilant as explicit AI deepfakes become more easily accessible to students. ABC News. Available at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/explicit-ai-deepfakes-students-bacchus-marsh-grammar/104016178?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web.
Yim, H. (2024, September). South Korea to criminalise watching or possessing sexually explicit deepfakes. Reuters. Avalaible at https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-criminalise-watching-or-possessing-sexually-explicit-deepfakes-2024-09-26/.
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