The changes would make deepfake creation using AI, where no consent of the original image is obtained, illegal.
Creating intimate images without consent will become an offence, alongside the sharing of the images.
Bailiwick Law Enforcement approached the Committee for Home Affairs last year, after it was dealing with several similar cases and found a gap in current laws.
‘There was a gap in the current legislation whereby if deepfake images are created, it’s not an explicit offence in itself,’ said Home Affairs president Marc Leadbeater.
‘Back in November, the committee decided to make the creation of these deepfake images an offence and to update our legislation and try to keep ahead of the curve.’
A policy letter is currently being drawn up and the committee is trying to get it to the States as a matter of priority.
Deputy Leadbeater said it was difficult to say just how soon this law could be in place, but the aim was to get the policy letter into the States during the first quarter of the year. Seven areas relating to sexual imagery will be addressed, as well as two updates to fix gaps in the current law to tackle voyeurism and the use of AI.
X’s AI tool Grok has been across the national media this week, for being able to edit regular images of real people to be intimate.
Technological measures have been implemented to Elon Musk’s AI tool to prevent Grok from editing images of people in revealing clothing.
However, UK regulator Ofcom is still investigating in to whether the platform has broken UK laws.
‘There have been some issues of this in Guernsey using this sort of technology by offenders and the gap in the law was brought to law enforcement’s attention by the criminology in this area,’ said Deputy Leadbeater.
‘The whole idea of this legislation is to prevent people from making these images and videos in the first place. It doesn’t matter what technology they use, what platform they use, whether that be Grok or another AI platform, they will be captured by this legislation and they will be prosecuted.’
Guernsey’s Home Affairs Committee was ahead of the UK on this topic, commencing work to amend local legislation back in November. It will also be illegal to request deepfakes, possess indecent cartoons or drawings of children, or cyberflashing, which is sending unsolicited pictures of genitals to another person.
‘This is one benefit that we’ve got about the closeness that we have with law enforcement and the law officers’ chambers, they can come to the committee whenever they feel the need to stiffen up legislation to help them discharge their responsibilities appropriately,’ said Deputy Leadbeater.
‘That’s a good demonstration of how law enforcement, the operational interface and political interface can work seamlessly, and can act on these things to get there ahead of other jurisdictions as soon as there is a potential threat to our community.’
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