AI changes offenders’ approach to child pornography
Published: Tuesday, Mar 19th 2024, 08:00
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the creation of child pornography material: "AI offenders fit less into the classic offender profile that we have known up to now," said Regula Bernhard Hug, Head of Office at Child Protection Switzerland.
Although the perpetrators are still mostly male, they do not know the victims personally. In an interview with the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" published on Tuesday, Bernhard Hug said that they "acquire" the desired material from images of children on the internet with the help of AI.
The perpetrators put together abusive images as desired, said Bernhard Hug. "A desired face, with a desired body, in a certain pose that reminds us of adult pornography." In some cases, the child's voice is also used if it is available from videos on the internet. "AI is now so good that you can hardly tell that the images are not real," she said.
On the one hand, the material is sold by the perpetrators. "The business with AI child pornography is lucrative," says Bernhard Hug. But it can also be used for blackmail: "The perpetrators told one father that his daughter was prostituting herself and that if he didn't pay, it would be made public. The images of the daughter were generated using AI - but even the father found it difficult to recognize."
Criticism of the use of children's images
Bernhard Hug criticized the use of children's pictures by relatives: "Parents and grandparents sometimes upload pictures of their children and grandchildren online without restraint, in which their faces can be seen or personal data is included." Schools also often lack a feel for this, for example when class photos are posted online without encryption. According to the expert, this is dangerous. "It is also important that older children are made aware of the risks."
Since April 2022, Child Protection Switzerland, together with the Guido Fluri Foundation, has been running "Clickandstop.ch", the first Swiss reporting center against sexual violence against children and young people.
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