Sheffield author 'has nightmares' after her face is used on explicit pics online
Helen Mort wants so-called 'deepfakes' to be illegal
Last updated 11th Jan 2021
A Sheffield author says she's had nightmares after seeing her own face superimposed on explicit pictures online.
Helen Mort found out just before Christmas her social media pics had been photoshopped on to inappropriate images on the web without her knowledge.
It's something called a deepfake but there's no specific criminal offence banning it.
Helen says she was told by a friend who'd spotted them:
"I was horrified, confused and shocked. Because I knew that I'd never shared any kind of intimate photos of myself anywhere or with anyone in my life. So at first I didn't really understand what it could be. When I investigated it, it turns out these were faked images.
"Somebody had been on my social media, including my locked Instagram account, and they'd taken normal holiday photos and they'd used my face from those images and photoshopped it on to a series of violent and pornographic photos.
"I've had a lot of nightmares about some of the images afterwards, nightmares about being attacked. I didn't really want to leave the house, I got really suspicious of all kinds of people that I knew."
When Helen went to the police they told her that there's no specific offence that covers so-called deepfakes.
Revenge porn, when an explicit picture of someone is shared without their consent, is illegal, but there's no law that bans creating fake images with someone's pictures.
Helen's now campaigning to get that changed, with the help of her MP Paul Blomfield.
She says action must be taken to stop it happening to other people:
"It is possible to get them taken down and that is something that, I think, websites are getting better at. But for me it still doesn't go far enough to protect people.
"It's a bit like if someone was punching you in the face repeatedly and then they just went 'oh sorry, that's really naughty, I won't do that again.' That wouldn't be enough to stop it having been done.
"I've been given hope by Gina Martin's petition on upskirting which was not illegal at the point when it happened to her and now is. I think that's quite a similar example - it's something that when you tell people about it they go 'What? That's not illegal?' because is seems so obvious that it should be."
"We've seen quite a bit recently on the news on telly about deepfakes, especially after the Queen's Speech on Channel 4. And people have been quite worried about how they could be used for political manipulation. The reality is that 96% of deepfakes on the internet are pornographic. "
Since sharing her story on social media, Helen's had a number of people get in touch with her saying they've suffered something similar:
"I've been disturbed by all of the things I've been told by people privately about how this has happened to them or even to someone they know and the effect it's had on those people. And a lot of people haven't gone public and I understand why - because it is scary."
Helen's petition calling for a new law has so far had more than 4,000 signatures.