celebrities and ordinary women deepfake (Feb 2025)

Tens of thousands of deepfake porn images are produced weekly, many targeting celebrities and ordinary women. Sharing these images is a criminal offense under the 2023 Online Safety Act, but creating them is not. A private member's bill introduced by Tory peer Charlotte Owen aimed to ban the creation of such images without consent. The government initially promised to incorporate the bill's provisions into the data bill, but significantly weakened the proposed penalties. Instead of prison time, the government proposed only fines for creating deepfake porn, regardless of the number of offenses. They also added a "reasonable excuse" defense, despite no one being able to identify a valid excuse.