Exclusive: Top UK politicians victims of deepfake pornography

1 Jul 2024

Deepfake pornography is growing exponentially. A single image can be digitally altered using artificial intelligence – to create porn without someone’s consent. And Channel 4 News can reveal the latest victims are British politicians.  

Deepfake pornography is growing exponentially. A single image can be digitally altered using artificial intelligence – to create porn without someone’s consent. And Channel 4 News can reveal the latest victims are British politicians.  

We found 400 digitally altered pictures of more than 30 high-profile UK politicians on a sexually explicit website dedicated to the abuse and degradation of women. 

We can disclose that the victims include Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, Conservative Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, former home secretary Priti Patel and Labour backbencher Stella Creasy. Several told us they planned to call in the police.

It appears that AI was used to “nudify” around a dozen female politicians. That means photos of them were turned into naked images, without their consent. Other pictures used less sophisticated technology like Photoshop.

For understandable reasons, most of those we identified are unwilling to talk publicly, for fear of exacerbating the abuse. But Dehenna Davison, who stood down as a Conservative MP when the election was called, did agree to speak to us.

She told me she found it “really strange” people would bother to take the time to target women like her but added she found it “quite violating”.  She warned that unless governments around the world put in place a proper AI regulatory framework, “major problems” loomed.

Labour backbencher Stella Creasy also agreed to speak to us about the fake images we found of her. She says she felt “sick” when we told her about the pictures and that “none of this is about sexual pleasure, it’s all about power and control”.

We’re not naming the site, which encourages anonymous users to share thousands of photos and post pictures of men masturbating. Our research discovered that in the last three months alone, the site had more than 12.6m visitors, 9% from the UK.

Several of the politicians we contacted are now in contact with the police. But while sharing or distributing non-consensual deepfake content is now a criminal offence, the government’s plan to outlaw the creation of deepfake porn was dropped as a result of the election being announced. The Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru all told us they would ban the creation of deepfake porn. And the SNP said they’d carefully consider any legislation proposed by Westminster. We also asked Reform and the Green Party what they would do but didn’t receive a response.

The site in question claims only to allow lawful content of people aged over 18. But illegal activity on it has led to criminal convictions in the UK and elsewhere.