The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has published new guidance urging lawmakers to act faster and more decisively against non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including sexualized deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence (AI), a phenomenon that disproportionately targets women and girls.
Combating non-consensual intimate imagery: A parliamentary action guide warns that generative AI has made it easier, cheaper and faster to create abusive synthetic images from ordinary photos, while existing laws and platform safeguards often fail to keep pace.
The guide cites data from UN Women, which reports a surge in sexualized deepfakes, particularly affecting women and girls, with deepfake videos alone increasing by 550% between 2019 and 2023.
With little evidence that technology companies are doing enough to prevent the creation and circulation of such content – and indeed with commercial incentives pulling in the opposite direction – the guide underlines that parliaments are uniquely positioned to shape the responsible use of AI.
Five priorities for parliaments
The IPU sets out five priorities for parliamentary action:
- legislate to recognize AI-generated NCII as gender-based violence;
- create fast takedown mechanisms and victim-support systems;
- use parliamentary oversight to track enforcement and platform compliance;
- speak out publicly to build awareness and cross-party support;
- cooperate internationally to address a borderless harm.
Growing political concern
According to the IPU guide, NCII is not only a technology problem but also a democratic one, with women parliamentarians, journalists, candidates and human rights defenders among those most at risk.
The IPU warns that the pace at which these technologies is advancing, and the concentration of their development among just a few global actors, together poses “one of the defining policy challenges of the moment for democratic institutions”.
Parliamentary solutions
However, the guide refers to dozens of examples of good practice from parliaments around the world that are addressing the problem, including:
- The European Union’s 2022 Digital Services Act, which imposes obligations on online platforms to manage illegal and harmful content. The 2024 EU AI Act lays out the first comprehensive regulatory framework for AI, serving as inspiration for many other jurisdictions.
- Following a sharp rise in exploitative content among students in 2024, the Republic of Korea’s Parliament responded rapidly. A special parliamentary committee introduced reforms that expanded criminal liability beyond production and distribution of NCII to include possession and viewing of such images.
- After a campaign led by women who had experienced online abuse, the Mexican Parliament passed the “Ley Olimpia” which establishes “digital violence” as a legally recognized category and which criminalizes the non-consensual dissemination of intimate material.
These examples show that decisive parliamentary action is possible, and that the most effective responses combine parliaments’ lawmaking, oversight, representative and budgetary functions, working in coordination.
