Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Bill 2024. The growing issue of AI deepfake technology being used to create false depictions of real people is causing stress and anxiety across the country. But I guess the most important thing is to identify exactly what we are talking about when it comes to a deepfake. Deepfakes are images, videos or sound files—often generated using artificial intelligence—of a real person that have been edited to create a realistic but false depiction of that person doing or saying something they did not actually do or say. Deepfakes can create entirely new content or manipulate existing content using a large number of photos or recordings of a person. The risks of abuse are growing as the tools to create deepfakes become incredibly accessible.

Celebrities and politicians globally have been victims of fake images and videos for many years—some of it has been for comedic purposes but a lot of it is more sinister. We've heard from previous speakers about the prevalence of sexually explicit deepfakes running to 90 per cent or so. Disturbingly, as the rate of technology in AI gathers so quickly, those tools are now readily available. You can just download the app from the app store, and you can be making deepfakes. They are readily available for anyone to make a fake, simply by uploading profile pictures of someone from a social media account. The more photos that you have of a real person, the more realistic that deepfake can become because the technology can read that image so much more.

It's important to note that the legislation before the House today deals explicitly with adults, not children. But it is young people in particular, of course, who are using social media, and they are—I hate to say it—naturals at using new technology. It comes very easily to them to use this sort of technology, and young people in particular are becoming both perpetrator and victim. Far too often, girls are being targeted and, worryingly, by boys they know.

In the past month alone, we've seen reports of a very well-known school north-west of Melbourne whose students were targeted with fake nude images circulating online. The principal said that about 50 girls from the school had been targeted. He said that it appeared the images of their faces were taken from social media sites—innocently placed photos on a social media site, maybe in a sports team or celebrating something with their family—before those photos were downloaded and then manipulated to make what this principal described as 'obscene photographs'. In May, a boy was expelled from another college in Melbourne's south-east after creating fake sexual images of a female teacher which were circulated around the school.

Digitally created and altered sexually explicit material is a very damaging form of abuse against women and girls, in particular, that can inflict deep and lasting harm. I have a message to any young men out there. As I said, this legislation targets adults and the depiction of adults, not children, but it doesn't take long for a 16-year-old boy to become a 17-year-old and then an 18-year-old adult. I have a message to the young men of this country. It's not funny. It's not a lark. It's not youthful, innocent high jinks on the way to adulthood. It's abuse. It's disrespectful. And now it's a crime.

Deepfakes are emotionally harmful and can be and are being used in blackmail sextortion scams. Last September, the social media analytics firm Graphika recorded a 2,000 per cent increase in the number of website links offering deepfake tools. It's a popular technology. I can understand the allure of it—to download photos of somebody you know and make a deepfake. People who enjoy tech enjoy this sort of thing. As I said, some of it has been innocent. I think there has been a popular one on TikTok, or something like that, of a guy pretending to be Tom Cruise. He just spends all of his time running through the videos like Tom Cruise runs. It's clearly a deepfake; it's clearly not Tom Cruise. We're not fooled into thinking that Tom Cruise is running around the streets. But that's a very different proposition to what is before the House today, which is about the sexual deepfakes causing harm to people.

Index of Biodiversity Surveys for Assessments data from across the UK, New Zealand and Australia in 2021 revealed some disturbing facts. Thirteen per cent of respondents in Australia aged between 16 and 84 have been victims in one or more ways, including through distribution or the threat of distribution. There are twice as many LGBTIQ victims as there are straight victims. Indigenous people or people from minority ethnic groups are more likely to be victims, and people with disabilities are 3½ times more likely to be victims.

The Albanese government is creating new criminal offences to ban the non-consensual sharing of deepfake pornography, and this legislation comes not before time. It's a difficult area. The fact is this technology is moving very, very quickly, and it's difficult for parliaments to keep up. But we're having a red-hot crack at this. It's so important. These reforms will make clear that those who share sexually explicit material without consent using technology like artificial intelligence will be subject to serious criminal penalties. Let me repeat that: it's not just the people who create this stuff who are in the firing line; it's also the people who share it. If you see it and you think, 'Oh, I'll send that on to a mate,' or 'I'll put it on my site or send it to somebody,' as soon as you hit 'send', you are committing a criminal offence and you are liable for time in prison.

The new offences carry a maximum penalty of six years imprisonment for transmitting sexual material without consent and seven years imprisonment for aggravated offences, including where the person created the material. If you're a 20-year-old bloke sitting around making this stuff thinking it's funny and you share it your mates, then you're up for 13 years, and your mates who share it are up for six years. That's how important this is. That's how serious it is. This is criminal behaviour.

These amendments are high-priority reforms following the Albanese government's public commitment on 1 May this year to introduce a suite of measures to tackle online harms, particularly those targeting women and young girls. This bill will amend the Criminal Code 1995 to modernise and strengthen offences targeting the non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit material online. It includes material that's been created or altered using technology such as deepfakes. Aggravated offences will build on this new underlying offence where the person was responsible for the creation or alteration of the sexual material transmitted. Sexually explicit deepfakes created and shared without consent are used to degrade and dehumanise others, target women, perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes and drive gender based violence. When shared or posted online without the consent of the person depicted, it is a serious breach of a person's privacy and can have long-lasting harmful impacts on victims, and it will become a criminal offence once it passes the House and the parliament. The Criminal Code currently criminalises the sharing of private sexual material online, but the definition of 'private sexual material' is potentially limiting. That's how fast technology is moving. It doesn't explicitly extend to artificially generated material such as deepfakes. That's why this bill removes any argument.

The bill proposes to repeal the existing offence relating to private sexual material and replace it with a new offence that applies where a person transmits material using a carriage service, the material depicts a person who is or appears to be 18 years of age or older, the material depicts or appears to depict certain poses or body parts of a sexual nature and the person knows the person depicted does not consent to the transmission of the material or is reckless as to whether the depicted person consents. It's important to note that it's not just private people who are covered by this; it also covers well-known celebrities, such as the one who has been noted here tonight who has been a victim to some of this. If someone shares that image, thinking, 'Look at this; this is funny,' even if they know it's only pretending to be so and so but they still send it, they've got no reasonable basis to say that the person has consented to them sending it and they've still committed a criminal act. People need to understand how serious this is. If someone is sharing images or videos, deepfakes, of celebrities, politicians or people in the public eye, that's also captured in this legislation; it's not just for private citizens.

The bill also introduces two aggravated offences which apply increased penalties to the offence. This is where, before the commission of the underlying offence, three or more civil penalty orders are made against the person for contraventions of relevant provisions of the Online Safety Act 2021 and the person is responsible for the creation or alteration of the sexual material transmitted. These amendments are essential to ensure that offences can apply to both 'real' material, such as unaltered images and recordings, and fake or doctored material that has been created or altered by using technology, such as deepfakes. The new offences will not cover private communications between consenting adults or interfere with private adult relationships. The government has no business being in consenting adults' bedrooms. What people want to do as consulting adults is up to them. As long as there's consent, that's fine, but of course it's up to the people in that relationship to make sure that there absolutely is consent and not coercion.

The bill sets out specific defences to the transmission of sexual material without consent to ensure that the offence is targeted and proportionate and does not overly criminalise the sharing of adult pornography for legitimate purposes. The new offences will apply only to material depicting, or appearing to depict, adults. The reason for this is that the Criminal Code already criminalises the use of carriage services for child abuse material, including child abuse material generated by artificial intelligence.

These false altered images and videos cause irreversible emotional, financial and reputational harm. They're a real invasion of somebody's sense of self. Unfortunately, it is women who are vastly and disproportionately impacted by this. Our government wants to make it clear to the creators and sharers of these images that making and sharing this material is immoral and often misogynistic and that if it is done without consent it is always a crime. I commend this bill to the House.

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