UK is the first country to start legal measures against AI tools for child abuse

UK is the first country to start legal measures against AI tools for child abuse

Great Britain will make the use of artificial intelligence (AI) illegal to create children's pornographic pictures. This was announced on Saturday and makes the country the first state worldwide to introduce new criminal offenses in connection with sexual violence by AI.

statutory gray areas and new criminal offenses

The owning, creating, displaying or distributing explicit images of children is already a crime in England and Wales. The new criminal offenses aim to prevent the use of AI tools that are used to "nude" real pictures of children.

The increase in online children's pornography

This initiative is necessary because online criminals are increasingly using AI to create material for child abuse. According to the Internet Watch Foundation, the number of such explicit images in 2024 increased by almost five times.

protection of children and the public

Yvette Cooper, the Minister of the Interior of the United Kingdom, said: "We know that the activities of sick predators on the Internet often lead to the most hideous abuse. It is essential that we combat online child abuse as well as offline in order to better protect the public from new and emerging crimes

technology for perpetrator identification

The perpetrators also use AI tools to obscure their identity and blackmail children with fake pictures in order to force them to further abuse, for example by streaming live images, according to the government.

new criminal offenses in the law

The new criminal provisions include the possession, the creation or distribution of AI tools that are intended to produce material for child abuse, as well as the possession of so-called AI "Pedophilic manuals", which provide instructions on the use of this technology.

Additional measures against child abuse

Another specific criminal offense will be directed against operators of websites on which content on child abuse is spread. In addition, the authorities are enabled to unlock digital devices for checking.

extension of the legal regulations

The measures are introduced in the so -called crime and policing bill in parliament. Great Britain also announced that the creation and distribution of sexually explicit "deeppakes" - videos, pictures or audio recording that are realistically created with AI - also punishable.