LONDON: Sharing digitally altered “deepfake” pornographic images should be made a crime, a British government-backed review said on Feb 26 after finding victims were being denied justice because the law has not kept up with new, high-tech forms of abuse. Reforms are also needed to fill in gaps on taking and sharing intimate images with permission, and “sextortion” threats to share them, said the Law Commission, an independent body that recommends reforms to laws in England and Wales. “For victims, having their intimate images taken or shared without consent can be an incredibly damaging and humiliating experience,” Prof. Penney Lewis, criminal law commissioner at the Law Commission, said in a statement. Ministers had asked the Law Commission to review criminal laws around taking, making and sharing intimate images, amid concerns technology was driving new forms of sexual abuse and making it easier to create and distribute intimate photos. “Like me, they felt that their experience either wasn't understood, captured adequately in law or taken as seriously as it should be by the authorities.

Source: The Star February 26, 2021 08:32 UTC