Baroness Owen to introduce law change aimed at criminalising deepfake creation
Lady Owen has led calls about the rise in deepfake nude images generated by artificial intelligence.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A law change aimed at criminalising “disproportionately sexist” deepfake porn will be introduced in Parliament by a former adviser to Boris Johnson.
Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge, who was a special adviser to the ex-prime minister during his time in Downing Street, will introduce the Private Member’s Bill in the House of Lords.
“My Bill seeks to create offences relating to taking of sexually explicit images, which basically means that you can’t take a sexually explicit picture of someone without their consent,” Lady Owen said in her first broadcast interview with Channel 4 News.
She added: “The second part of it is you can’t create deepfake image or ask someone to create a deepfake image for you without consent.”
I want to help push this law through to prevent more women becoming victims of this technology
The 31-year-old Conservative peer was until recently the youngest member of the House of Lords, until Plaid Cymru’s Carmen Smith was appointed to Parliament’s upper chamber.
Lady Owen has previously issued warnings in the House of Lords about a huge increase in people using so-called nudify apps, applications which allow users to create fake nude images or videos of other people through generative artificial intelligence, widely known as deepfakes.
Speaking to Channel 4, Lady Owen said deepfake porn “is disproportionately sexist”.
She added: “There’s so many victims being created every single week.
“Women are losing the ability to choose who owns a naked image, an explicit video.
“Then women can no longer choose.
“That choice has been taken away from them.”
The Online Safety Act has made it illegal to share deepfakes without consent, but Lady Owen has said the law needs to go further.
The baroness also told the broadcaster she was still in touch with her former boss Mr Johnson, and claimed he “always offers wonderful advice” when she was asked about the online disinformation and speculation about why he had nominated her for a peerage.
Lady Owen said she had been surprised to receive the nomination, which came through by email.
Asked if she thought there was an equivalence between the online speculation about why she was appointed to the Lords, and the creation of deepfakes, the Tory peer said: “Falsehoods and the creation of falsehoods online is always wrong, and that’s why I want to be an advocate.
“I want to help push this law through to prevent more women becoming victims of this technology.
“And I believe that misinformation and disinformation and deep fakes as a part of this will form a huge topic of conversation for the next decade.”
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.