All Rise Workshops is passionate about legal education in schools.
We have recently announced a new workshop on what the law has to say about certain types of negative online behaviours specifically cyberbullying and digital image abuse.
With this workshop, we believe education is prevention. By using a legal approach, we can better address sensitive and taboo topics, helping students to express personal boundaries, respect the boundaries of others and make informed and healthy decisions.
The report today about the deepfake image abuse crisis in South Korea is incredibly alarming.
We are all too aware that artificial intelligence, and its use on social media, is making it continuously harder to distinguish between real and fake information online. Deepfakes combine a real person’s face with a fake body containing explicit material. Online users share photos of women they know and use AI software to convert them into fake explicit images within seconds.
Following extensive work by media outlets and women’s rights activists, it was established that (by the end of last week) over 500 schools and universities in South Korea had been identified as targets of deepfakes. Many of the victims are believed to be under the age of 16 and many of the perpetrators are teenagers themselves.
South Korean commentators suggest that deepfakes are endemic in their culture and seen as pranks and games. The consequences for the victims however can be truly devastating.
The law in the UK on deepfakes is fast evolving and is struggling to keep up with up with the technology. Currently, online users are protected by a provision in the Online Safety Act 2023 which makes it an offence to ‘..intentionally share or threaten to share a photo or a film (to include images made by AI) which shows or appears to show a person in an intimate state..’
Perpetrators can face up to 2 years in jail and can be added to the sex offenders register. It is paramount our young people are educated on these topics. They need to be told that creating/sharing deepfakes (containing explicit images) are not normal, fun or pranks (or an expected part of a relationship) but constitute acts of sexual abuse and are criminal offences.
Whilst it is highly unlikely the police will take any formal action against anyone under the age of 18 (in the absence of any aggravating factors), we all have an obligation to challenge any misconceptions in this area and plainly state the law and the difference between right and wrong.
We will make sure that this message is taken into schools this academic term.
