The Know Daily - Tuesday 27 June 2023

_{Read in 5m 24s ∙ Listening to Rina Sawayama}

Brighten up your Tuesday by checking out the incredible winning images from the Drone Photo Awards 2023. We particularly love Simon Heather’s aptly-named Beach Bliss - an aerial shot of sunbathers in Cascais, Portugal - which scooped first prize in the “people” category.

📝 Intimate image crackdown

Sharing deepfake intimate images is set to be criminalised in England and Wales under amendments to the Online Safety Bill announced today.

First things first - deepfake?
“Deepfake pornography is where computer technology is used to map the faces of celebrities and private citizens on to explicit sexual material,” explained the BBC. A study carried out in 2019 revealed that up to 95% of deepfakes are nonconsensual, and around 90% of those are of women.

The Ministry of Justice has said that the use of deepfakes has been increasing in recent years. One website which virtually strips women naked received 38 million hits in the first eight months of 2021.

Got it. So what will this legislation do?
Under the amendments, the sharing of deepfake intimate images will be criminalised for the first time. Current laws around revenge porn will also be overhauled, so that the prosecution is no longer required to prove that perpetrators shared sexual images or films in order to cause distress, making it easier to convict them.

The maximum sentence for this base offence will be six months, but offenders found guilty of intending to cause distress, alarm or humiliation or to obtain sexual gratification could face up to two years of prison time.

Is there anything else I should know?
The reform follows campaigning by reality TV personality Georgia Harrison, who was a victim of revenge porn by her ex-boyfriend, and Tory MP Maria Miller, as well as recommendations from the Law Commission.