Parliament will vote on ACT MP's bill to ban deepfake abuse

ACT MP Laura McClure is welcoming the draw of her Member’s Bill to criminalise non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes from Parliament's member's ballot.

"When deepfakes are explicit, and generated without consent, it is a harmful and traumatic form of abuse. The harm is real and it's happening right now.

"Since I lodged my bill, I've heard from victims who've had their lives derailed by deepfake abuse. Netsafe say they receive complaints daily from people whose images have been weaponised to create sexually explicit deepfake abuse. Principals have told me it's a rising problem at New Zealand's schools.

“Parliament now has the opportunity to empower victims of deepfake abuse with a clear pathway toward the removal of the images and the prosecution of their abusers.

"My Bill does not seek to ban a whole subset of technology or create a new regulatory regime. It is a simple tweak to existing laws to address a specific, well-defined and understood problem.

"The technology is advancing, and its use is expanding. We need to act now before the abuse of this technology is normalised."

Last night Laura McClure spoke about deepfake abuse in Parliament's General Debate. The video can be found here.

The Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill can be read here. The Bill amends the Crimes Act 1961 and the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 to expand the definition of 'intimate visual recording' to explicitly include images or videos that are created, synthesised, or altered to depict a person’s likeness in intimate contexts without their consent.