Hong Kong – The Chinese Hong Kong Chinese authorities launched a criminal investigation after more than a dozen students and teachers from the University of Hong Kong accused a male student to use AI to generate deep porn images.
The probe, announced Tuesday by the office of the privacy commissioner for personal datacame after an outcry of university students, the oldest in the city, who said it had not done enough to protect them or punish the accused.
“The images were organized in files appointed according to the victims, totaling more than 700 images (including the original photos),” read a widely disseminated letter that was Posted Saturday on Instagram From an account managed by three anonymous victims.
The accused, called in the letter only as “a student in male law”, took photos of social media victims and used AI software to generate pornographic images with the face, according to the letter. The images were discovered on his laptop reported at the University in February. They were not known to have been widely distributed.
In March, the university interviewed some of the victims and, in April, informed one of them that the student accused had written a “letter of apology” of 60 words.
While NBC News has not been able to confirm the authenticity of this letter and the account did not respond to a request for comments, the university declared that it was “aware of the publications on social networks concerning a student who would have used AI tools to create indecent images”.
“The university has already published a warning letter for him and demanded official apologies to his affected peers,” University said on Saturday in a statement.
Deepfake Porn is a type of non -consensual pornography that involves modifying existing images or creating entirely new AI tools using EA easily available AI to reveal that a person has participated in sexual acts.
Regulations in Hong Kong around technology are currently rare. Although it criminalizes “a publication or a threatened publication of intimate images without consent”, it does not explicitly intervene their generation.
In the United States, the regulations govern the dissemination, President Donald Trump signing legislation in May which prohibits the online non-consensual publication of porn generated by the AI, but the federal law does not explicitly prohibit personal possession and a The district judge judged in February that the possession of such images was protected by the first amendment.
After having been shaken by a certain number of scandals similar to that playing in Hong Kong, South Korea adopted a law last year which criminalizes not only possession but also the consumption of such content.
Although the University of Hong Kong declared that it had undertaken various measures on behalf of the victims, “including class adjustments”, the victims wrote in the letter that the inaction of the university had led them to share the class with the suspect “at least four times, provoking unnecessary psychological distress”.
Indignation has since increased in the wider student community, which required stricter action. This provoked an answer from the senior city official, the chief executive, John Lee, who declared in a press information On Tuesday, universities have the “responsibility for developing the moral nature of the students”, the addition of establishments should “face the misconduct of students seriously”.
“Any conduct that harms others can constitute a criminal offense and can also infringe individual rights and privacy,” he said.
The university did not respond to a request for comments from NBC News, but it said The morning post in southern China This week, he produced an examination of the incident and promised new measures if the victims asked more.
“The university now examines the case more and will take other measures, if necessary, to guarantee a safe and respectful learning environment,” he said.
