Less than a week ago, A South Australian man became the first person in the country to be prosecuted under a new federal law aimed at combating deepfake adult pornography.
Unfortunately, he most certainly won’t be the last.
The nineteen year old has been charged with eight counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent under a 2024 law aimed to combat deepfake pornography created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.
While this may be the first case to be prosecuted under the new legislation, authorities and experts (eSafety Commissioner) say the rise in the creation of sexually explicit deepfake material is concerning, particularly with the lack of effective measures by platform providers to stem the harm before such material is propagated.
But what are deepfakes?
Artificial intelligence (AI) provides an opportunity for anyone to create realistic and misleading content, including fake sexualised material. With the development of AI technologies only increasing at an alarming rate, such material has become more realistic to the point of being almost indistinguishable to the untrained eye.
A deepfake is an image or video in which a real person's face or body has been edited using AI software to create a false depiction.
According to the nation's online safety watchdog, Australians are "increasingly using artificial intelligence tools in their everyday lives, and with that uptake comes growing concern about the misuse of these technologies". (Source: eSafety 2025 report)
A new report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology this week also found more than three in 10 Australians feared falling victim to AI-generated deepfake content or impersonations.
We believe this is only the tip of the iceberg of a much more impending, serious problem in a country already facing serious sexual harassment levels. Over 1.3 million women reported that they have been sexually harassed online or in person, and AI tools used for this purpose will only fuel further abuse.
How prevalent are these sexually explicit deepfakes?
Professor Asher Flynn, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women at Monash University, led a 2019 study across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This was before the proliferation of generative AI to the general public as a tool.
It had found then 14.6 per cent of the 6,109 respondents aged 16 to 64 had experienced someone creating a sexualised digitally altered image of them without their consent.
Professor Flynn said 8 per cent of respondents in the same study had acknowledged that they themselves had created a sexualised digitally altered image of another person without their consent.
In the six years since then, she said, the number of tools which could create sexualised content had become even more readily available.
"AI has provided a new and readily accessible way for people to engage in harmful behaviours, including gendered and sexual violence," she said.
"We can see this in particular through the use of AI technologies such as nudify apps which can create non-consensual realistic, sexualised content of another person simply by uploading a photo of them.
"A big concern is that the rapid spread of these tools is already normalising the practice of sexualising images — particularly of women and girls — without their consent.
"And so there is a real risk here that we are taking some massive steps backwards in our efforts to address and prevent sexual harassment abuse."
Aside from the current age restrictions targeted at under 16s, we further note the chronic lack of proactive action in enforcing these platforms to take more stringent measures. The fact that children are also the target of such material was further brought up by the eSafety commission, with the annual report finding that "Reports to eSafety about digitally altered intimate images, including deepfakes, from people under the age of 18 have more than doubled in the 18 months up to June 2025, compared to the total number of reports received in the seven years prior," We commend the commission for identifying these trends but there is still worry about the potential amount of unreported incidents of abuse.
Although Australia’s legislative reform has been proactive comparatively to the rest of the globe for combatting the rise of AI in crime and sexual harassment, we stress that merely dealing with the aftermaths is not enough to safeguard societal wellbeing.
But what specifically are the laws?
In 2024, the federal government introduced new laws banning the sharing of non-consensual deepfake adult pornography. Currently, Offences involving child abuse material are dealt with under a separate subsection of the legislation. When announcing the new laws, then Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the non-consensual sharing of such images was a "damaging and deeply distressing form of abuse". He said the new laws "will make clear that those who share sexually explicit material without consent, using technology like artificial intelligence, will be subject to serious criminal penalties". Under these, sharing non-consensual deepfake sexually explicit material carries a penalty of six years in jail, while creating and sharing deepfake material without consent carries a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment. Some states also have their own laws relating to deepfake material.
The eSafety watchdog also says additional world-leading enforceable industry codes which come into effect next month would also "help protect Australian children from harmful and age-inappropriate content".
So how do we combat these deepfakes?
Much more must be done to combat deepfake abuse, whether it be tighter regulations or general societal awareness. Our most recent survey in the adult age bracket 18-30 found that just 21% of respondents were aware of the deepfake laws, with most going by their usage off their own common sense and personal morals.
However, we need technology providers to be more answerable to community standards and to remove apps from their platforms where those apps are promoting criminally harmful behaviours. This means tighter fines and potential repercussions in limiting their services if they fail to comply with a high standard of safety. We stress, again, that tech conglomerates do not lack the resources to abide by and be held accountable for their actions, and thus the onus is on them to actively keep their platforms safe for all ages to prevent non-consensual sexualised deepfake imagery from being proliferated.
We agree that the new legislation is a positive step in sending a clear warning that the behaviour was not condoned, but awareness and societal moral standards on this are still vague or largely unheard of. Implementing laws is only a reactive response.
We reiterate the clear duty by both state and federal governments in ramping up our efforts in prevention education with young people through promoting respectful relationships as well as ethical AI responsibility. That means shaping a responsible, shared digital society, and what it looks like to be an upright digital citizen in today's world. These new laws will unfortunately see more use in the coming years. Education includes understanding of consent and the non-consensual sharing of images, and making sure this is made aware as early as possible so that children and young people understand the harms of the new forms of technology, including the use of AI.