East Derry SDLP MLA Cara Hunter requests meeting with UK Minister over deepfakes

Ms Hunter has joined forces with the Not Your Porn campaign which seeks to protect people from image-based abuse. The group are seeking legislation to prevent deepfake images and safeguard people from abuse online.

East Derry MLA Ms Hunter said: “I welcome the steps that the UK Government and Minister are taking on online safety, particularly around the protection of children, but there is still a need for specific legislation to deal with the harm caused by deepfake images and image based abuse which is becoming more and more prevalent and causing untold harm to victims’ lives.

“This campaign has gained significant support from leading academics in their field and also has the public backing of Glamour UK magazine and the End Violence Against Women Coalition.

"This is not something that we are going to let drop and I believe that only by meeting with the Minister directly can we make him understand how badly needed this legislation is and how without it victims will continue to suffer.

“The victims of this kind of abuse are predominantly women and children and it can have a significant impact on their family lives and careers. The people making these images cannot be allowed to act with impunity in the current online wild-west environment. We have also seen how this kind of technology has been weaponised to interfere in the democratic process and elections and that is a major concern.”