Child predators are using the advent of “deepfake” technology for disturbing purposes, and parents are being warned to use caution when they upload family pictures to the internet.
“I know parents love to post pictures and show the world what their kids are doing, I completely understand... my warning, very simply, is be thoughtful about who can access it,” said Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday.
Channel 11 has extensively covered “deepfakes,” which are essentially realistic-looking videos developed by artificial intelligence.
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The technology is accessible to essentially anyone, and child predators have seized on the opportunity to develop disturbing and pornographic images and videos.
“Unfortunately and quite horrifically, we see people that will take these pictures down, they’ll find them online and then they will use AI software to manipulate those pictures and turn them into child sexual abuse material, which no parent would ever in a million years want to see happen,” Sunday told Channel 11 in a sit-down interview.
This year, his office has brought charges against multiple alleged offenders across Pennsylvania. Men have been charged in Blair, Mifflin, York and Butler counties.
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Federal investigators are also aggressively investigating these types of disturbing cases.
Last year, a Pittsburgh man was sentenced in federal court for creating child sex abuse material with the faces of celebrity children.
According to Christopher Giordano, FBI Pittsburgh’s Special Agent in Charge, the Pittsburgh field office was actually the first in the nation to successfully prosecute this type of case.
“The defense said ‘hey look, there’s no real victim here, this isn’t really happening,’ but the argument was ‘well, yeah, there are victims, these children are being victimized because their face and their likeness is being used.’”
In the months since, Congress passed the Take it Down Act, to officially clarify that this sort of artificially-generated material is a crime.
Pennsylvania lawmakers also passed legislation to criminalize these disturbing deepfakes.
“It gave police and prosecutors the tools that we need to be able to investigate and prosecute these horrific, horrific cases,” Sunday said.
The Pennsylvania legislation was in part inspired by a case within a Lancaster County school, where a child was actually the perpetrator. That student utilized AI technology to develop nude images of his classmates in Lancaster County.
“It can’t be normalized in our society,” Rep. Nikki Rivera said, who represents the area where the student was ultimately charged.
Rivera told Channel 11 that the action went unreported for far too long, and now she and fellow lawmakers are taking things a step further, preparing additional legislation that closes reporting loopholes.
The proposed law would require school officials with knowledge of this type of illegal AI activity to have to report it to authorities.
“Any question about the safety and protection of children, no matter who the perpetrator is, it needs to be reported,” Rivera said.
Rivera’s bill serves as companion legislation to a Senate bill that was recently introduced. It advanced out of the Judiciary Committee and is awaiting consideration in the full Senate.
Meanwhile, while it may be easier for predators to develop this type of disturbing material, officials say it won’t be any easier to get away with it.
“Law enforcement’s watching,” Sunday said.
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