Hyperfaking among young people, a growing phenomenon

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The Régie intermunicipale de police Thérèse-De Blainville ( RIPTB) emphasizes the long-term consequences when a minor is exposed to doctored photos. (Archive photo)

• David Beauchamp (View profile)David Beauchamp

Speech synthesis, based on artificial intelligence, makes it possible to generate spoken text from written text.

Hyperfaking and fake nudes are phenomena that are growing among young people due to easy-to-access applications and a lack of awareness. This is the warning issued by the Régie intermunicipale de police Thérèse-De Blainville (RIPTB), after arresting five teenagers from the same secondary school in a case of hyperfaking.

The latter would have produced, using artificial intelligence (AI), hyper-faked images showing dozens of completely naked teenagers . This is reminiscent of the AI-generated pornographic images of American singer Taylor Swift that have invaded the web recently.

For Éric Huard, preventionist-investigator at RIPTB, this situation clearly illustrates the extent of the phenomenon of deepfake and the production of fake nudes among young people. . It also shows, according to him, the trivialization of this act constituting the production of child pornography, a serious criminal offense.

We're at a stage where, using six or eight real photos of yourself and an app that costs $15 to $20, it's possible to create photos that look like fakes, he says.

Some applications offer the possibility of creating material with sexual connotations, and people must be reminded that using a minor to creating this content is child pornography.

The investigator emphasizes the long-term consequences for victims when they are confronted with photos of themselves hyper-falsified with software. He acknowledges that it is difficult to limit the spread of content online, but says that you have to be vigilant if you are exposed to content like this.

This is also what declares Joanny H. St-Pierre, prosecutor and provincial coordinator for sexual exploitation of children on the Internet, who wants awareness efforts to be put in place to avoid production, conscious or unconscious. , child pornography.

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There is always a child who is a victim and who is sexually abused behind these images – there, real or not. In front of the world, the child will live with the impression that people have seen him naked, for real. This can have consequences for the rest of her days and cause difficulties at school, she argued on the show Le 15-18, on the airwaves of #x27;HERE First.

For his part, Mr. Huard calls on parents to broach the subject with their children so that they are aware of the consequences that can entail the creation of fake nudes.

We are at a stage where we are teaching our children to compost and to be careful before crossing the street, but we also want to create a generation of aware digital citizens.

A quote from Éric Huard, preventionist-investigator at the RIPTB

If you realize that your child has around ten applications on his cell phone that you don't know about, try to learn more and push the discussion with him. The impact on the victims is extremely damaging, and the applications are made so efficient that the photos are misleading, concludes the investigator.

• David Beauchamp (View profile)David BeauchampFollow< /li>