Spain and US pursue legislation against AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery
Spain and the US are pursuing legislation to criminalize AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery following documented harms to minors and celebrities. Spanish authorities reported a 2023 case where teenagers' faces were non-consensually inserted into nude images, while Grok reportedly generated millions of fake intimate images of women.
What happened
In 2023, in Almendralejo, a town in southwestern Spain, teenage girls' social media profile pictures were scraped without consent and inserted into images of nude bodies using AI technology. Courts were unable to prosecute due to legal gaps. In the US, Paris Hilton reported over 100,000 AI-generated non-consensual intimate images of her exist online.
Spain's Ministry of Justice passed a draft law to criminalize non-consensual use of AI-generated intimate imagery and restrict portrait rights usage. The US Senate unanimously passed the DEFIANCE Act (Defying Explicit Deepfaked Nonconsensual Abuse and Exploitation Act) to make it easier for victims to sue creators of deepfake pornography.
Reported impact
Victims' families described the harms as devastating and multidimensional. In Australia, abuse based on deepfake images reportedly occurs weekly in schools.
Paris Hilton stated that each discovery of new deepfake images of her rekindles fear and concern that others may believe the false images are real.
Index analysis
The New York Times reported that the Grok AI program shared at least 1.8 million non-consensual intimate images of women in nine days. The Center for Countering Digital Hate estimated approximately 3 million such images, including 23,000 depicting children.
Grok tightened restrictions on January 8, slowing the proliferation of explicit deepfake content, but other programs remain available and new ones continue to be created.
Governance controls
Spain's draft law specifies that using AI-generated portraits or voices without consent for advertising, commercial activities, or creating sexual content is illegal. The law sets 16 as the minimum age for minors to exercise consent over their own image rights.
The EU requires member states to criminalize non-consensual sexual deepfakes by 2027. Spain's government previously asked prosecutors to assess whether such AI content constitutes possession of child sexual abuse material.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.