- New UK guidelines instruct prosecutors to charge perpetrators of deepfakes, cyberflashing and other image-based abuse, but campaigners are skeptical of enforcement.
- The guidelines result from updating laws to cover new offenses like deepfakes and downblousing photos shared without consent.
- Activists highlighted outdated police procedures as a remaining barrier, even with expanded legal powers to prosecute online sexual abuse.
The Crown Prosecution Service has issued new guidelines instructing prosecutors to consider bringing charges against “deepfake” images, as recent online safety laws come into effect. Deepfakes are digitally manipulated images of people published with malicious intent.
The guidelines also cover similar abusive behaviors like “downblousing,” capturing unwanted images down a woman’s top, and “cyberflashing,” sending unsolicited sexual images. These changes intend to counter predatory behaviors online.
Fighting Back Against deepfake Images, But Obstacles Remain
They follow public outcry over recently spread deepfake pornographic images of singer Taylor Swift. However, campaigners doubt whether the guidelines will lead to more prosecutions.
Disclosing private sexual images to cause distress became illegal in England and Wales in 2015. In 2021, the Domestic Abuse Act extended this to cover threatening to disclose such images. The Online Safety Act of 2022 further updated the law, replacing previous legislation with broader offenses around nonconsensually sharing and threatening to share intimate images.
Under the new guidelines, prosecutors will consider whether offenders intended victims to feel alarmed, distressed or humiliated. They will also prosecute if offenders hoped to gain sexual gratification, regardless of the victim’s reaction. For the first time, sharing intimate media without consent is a crime regardless of the perpetrator’s motives.
Threats to share intimate images will also be prosecuted where the victim fears the threat is real or if the offender shows recklessness towards causing such fear.
Additionally, manipulated or computer-generated intimate media, known as deepfakes, can now be prosecuted as image-based abuse for the first time. Nonconsensually obtained “downblouse” images can also lead to charges.
Regarding cyberflashing, prosecutors will determine if charges are appropriate based on whether the offender intended the victim to feel alarmed, distressed or humiliated by receiving the unsolicited sexual image.
Campaigner Emily Hunt welcomed the guidelines as a step forward, but doubted whether more prosecutions would result. Fellow activist Jamie Klingler also raised concerns over outdated police protocols and barriers to reporting these crimes.
Chief prosecutor Siobhan Blake asserted prosecutors are ready and committed to tackling this unacceptable behavior. However, only time will tell if victims will see justice served under the strengthened legal framework.
The evolution of digital technology has enabled new forms of sexual abuse and exploitation, outpacing society’s ability to adapt legal and social norms. As these violations often disproportionately affect women and girls, the Crown Prosecution Service’s updated guidelines represent a meaningful step towards justice. However, realizing progress requires confronting systemic barriers.
While expanding the legal framework sends a message that such behaviors should elicit outrage, laws alone cannot transform culture. Victim advocates rightly demand more than symbolic gestures. Achieving deterrence and accountability relies on the competence and willingness of institutions like law enforcement to investigate crimes which they have often dismissed in the past.
Police must radically modernize their capabilities, protocols and attitudes around technology-enabled abuse. Officers inclined to blame victims or downplay harms will undermine enforcement, regardless of prosecutors’ good intentions. Achieving justice in individual cases also requires trauma-informed, victim-centered practices.
Beyond these operational reforms, effecting change demands attacking the root cultural belief systems which engender abuse. Key influencers in media, education and community leadership must consistently challenge notions that women’s bodies exist for male consumption or control.
Law shapes norms, but also reflects them. While legislative progress merits cautious optimism, realizing a society free from exploitation requires complementary cultural transformation. Sustainable change starts from re-examining our own assumptions.
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