7 January 2025, 19:28 | Updated: 7 January 2025, 19:42

By Kelsey Farish

Imagine waking up to find a hyper-realistic, sexually explicit image of yourself circulating online—one you never consented to, and that isn’t even real.

This is the horrifying reality for victims of AI-generated intimate image abuse, also known as “deepfake porn.”

But today, 7 January 2025, the UK Government has announced its plans to criminalise the creation of such sexually explicit deepfakes.

This sort of content began with “face-swapping” videos of famous women actors such as Scarlett Johansson, Gal Gadot and Emma Watson in 2017, but has since spread from quiet corners of the dark web to mainstream social media and messaging apps.

And terrifyingly, anyone – not just famous Hollywood stars – can be victimised.

Fairly convincing deepfakes can be made with just one or two photographs and inexpensive mobile apps; and more sophisticated videos made with desktop software can rival Hollywood studios.

With the technology becoming better........

© LBC