A bill in Mexico seeks to punish anyone who generates false intimate content using artificial intelligence with up to 12 years in prison. Representative María Guadalupe Morales Rubio, from the Morena party, presented a proposal to reform the penal code From Mexico City. The legislator requests that the deepfakes porn in crimes against sexual intimacy.
The vice coordinator of the Morena Parliamentary Group in the Congress of Mexico City argues that deepfakes of sexual content can cause irreparable damage to people’s reputations. This would have devastating emotional, psychological and social consequences for the victims.
“The use of AI in the manipulation of sexual content, often known as deepfake, involves the creation of fake images or videos, where the faces of real people are realistically superimposed on the bodies of other people,” he mentions in the proposal. “These manipulated media can be used to produce false, defamatory or misleading pornographic content without the consent of the people involved.”
Morales Rubio cites the case of an IPN student who was arrested for selling sexual photos of his colleagues. Diego ‘N’, from the Digital Marketing major, stole photos from social networks and modified them with AI to generate deepfakes. After his arrest, the accused had 160,000 manipulated images and videos — several of them of the students — which he sold on Telegram.
The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office arrested Diego at the end of October on charges of digital violence. The accused is the first to be investigated for crimes related to the use of artificial intelligence.
Current laws must consider deepfakes created with AI
The legislator’s proposal seeks to reform Article 181 Quintus of the Penal Code of Mexico City, related to those who commit crimes against sexual intimacy.
The penalty for whoever commits this crime will be four to eight years in prison and a fine of up to 32,000 pesos. The punishment could reach up to 12 years if it is committed by a public servant or if the victim is a minor, elderly, disabled, of indigenous origin or living on the street.
“Stricter legal and regulatory measures are needed to address the misuse of AI in the creation of false intimate content,” said Morales Rubio. “In addition, it is crucial to increase public awareness about the existence of deepfakes and educate people on how to identify and mitigate their impact,” she stated.
It is important to mention that The legislator’s initiative does not include the word artificial intelligence, but adds the phrase “real or simulated.” A second proposal, written by deputy Fausto Zamoranoit does do so when integrating a paragraph into the same article.
Whoever uses artificial intelligence to create, expose, distribute, disseminate, exhibit, reproduce, transmit, market, offer, exchange and/or share images, audios or videos of intimate sexual content of a person, without their consent, and who To carry out these actions, use printed materials, email, telephone messages, social networks or any other technological means.
Morena’s proposal is processed in the Congress of Mexico City and will be subject to debate before approval. Subsequently, it will be sent to the Head of Government of CDMX for promulgation and publication in the Official Gazette of Mexico City.