When adults need protection too

The National Assembly has passed a revision allowing secret investigations of digital sex crimes targeting adults in a bid to curb the spread of deepfake sexual images prevalent on the internet.

At the plenary meeting of the 300-member National Assembly held on Thursday, the draft law envisaging amendments to the Law on Special Situations Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Offenses received votes in favor of 272 of the current 273 deputies.

Currently undercover investigations are limited to deepfake sex crimes targeting children or teenagers.

The bill expands the scope of undercover police investigations targeting children or teenagers to women of all ages.

This procedure will require a request from the prosecutor and approval from the court to ensure that the process is legally justified.

The revision of the Act on the Promotion of Information and Communication Network Use and Protection of Information was also passed by parliament, giving law enforcement the authority to request the Korean Communications Commission (KCC), the top media regulator, to delete deepfake sexual images.

The bill received the approval of all 281 MPs present.

This marks the first pan-government response following concerns about the lack of a coordinated strategy by relevant agencies to combat deepfake sex crimes in the country.

Under the plan, the government will amend the Telecommunications Business Act to allow platforms with deepfake material to block such images and videos before requesting the KCC to review the material.

To minimize harm and protect victims, the operating platform will be required to remove illegal content within 24 hours upon request from the streaming regulator.

Those caught possessing, purchasing, storing or even viewing deepfake porn content will face up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won (RM95,580).

A person who creates or edits obscene videos or images and distributes them online can now be sentenced to up to seven years in prison, compared to five years under the current law.

Those who have no intention of distributing online may also be penalized.

Those who exploit deepfake sex crimes involving minors through blackmail or coercion face a maximum of three and five years in prison, respectively.

The Department of Justice is pushing for changes to the sex crimes criminal code to seize criminals’ profits from deepfake sex crimes.

The government added that leniency will be applied to people who confess to participating in deepfake sex crimes.

As deepfake crimes circulate on the internet, operators of domestic and international platforms such as Telegram, which are considered “intermediaries providing harmful content to minors,” may be subject to regulation by distributing open channel links to unspecified individuals, which may encourage them to access obscene materials.

According to the KCC, corrective orders and fines will be issued against value-added service providers such as Naver and Meta if they fail to prevent the distribution of illegally filmed materials and deepfake content.

In France and the UK, social media companies or online service providers are responsible for managing illegal content on their platforms, the regulator said.

Authorities noted that in parallel with digital transformation, they will use artificial intelligence to automatically detect deepfake content in real time.

Once detected, the system will automatically request the deletion of such content from platform operations.

Authorities also plan to team up with platform operators to respond to the removal or blocking of deepfake pornographic content and set up additional hotlines to receive reports of illegal activity to protect victims, officials said.

They plan to create a website where victims can report incidents and make it easier for them to access support services.

In addition, the government plans to strengthen cooperation with overseas-based social networking platform companies to provide subscribers’ personal information in response to official requests from Korean courts and investigative agencies.

Moreover, schools and youth facilities will educate young people that creating, sharing or viewing sexually explicit material is a serious offense, while universities will also install various methods to raise awareness, such as anti-deepfake booths.

According to the Korean Women’s Human Rights Institute, in the first eight months of 2024, a total of 781 deepfake victims sought help from the Online Sexual Exploitation Victims Advocacy Center, and 288 of them were minors.

Additionally, according to police in late September, 387 people were arrested for deepfake sex crimes in 2024. — Korea Herald/ANN