Changes to Coco’s Law to “close loopholes” around the use of AI to produce non-consensual intimate images and videos were debated in the Dáil on Tuesday.
Sinn Féin has submitted a bill to Parliament to amend current legislation following reports that AI chatbots on the social media site X (formerly known as Twitter) were being used to create deepfakes of sexual images of people, including children.
The Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offenses Bill, also known as the COCO Act, was enacted in 2020.
The law makes distributing or publishing intimate images without consent with the intent to harm the victim a serious crime, punishing perpetrators with up to seven years in prison.
It also makes it a crime to threaten to distribute or publish such images.
But Sinn Féin’s justice spokesperson Matt Carthy said there were “ambiguities” in the current law, which had been “exposed” by Mr Groch.
The party said it had tabled the amendment to “make clear that the creation of sexual AI deepfakes is illegal”.
During the bill’s second reading, Mr Carthy criticized the government, saying: “The government could have introduced immediate and targeted amendments to close this loophole.”
He said: “If this was clear in the law, there would be no need for ministers to interact with the companies involved.
“If you or I are suspected of breaking the law and the Minister does not come to our home to discuss it, the appropriate authorities will hold us accountable.”
Maile Devine, a co-author of the amendment, said that over 11 days, approximately 3 million sexual images were created using Grok, “99 percent” of them of women and young children.
The law will be revised to extend the statute of limitations from two years to five years to give victims more time to come forward.
They will give An Garda Síochána more time to forensically and technically examine personal electronic devices.
And it aims to increase the maximum sentences that people convicted of these crimes could receive.
Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said the government had no intention of opposing the bill at this stage, adding that it shared “the widespread disgust at the fact that platforms are allowing the non-consensual nudity of images of mainly women and children”.
He said there are a number of laws that cover the generation and alteration of sexual images by AI.
But he said he was “keen to ensure that the law is free of flaws and that the legal framework currently in place is strong enough to protect people from digital harm.”
Mr O’Callaghan criticized some aspects of the Sinn Féin bill, saying the Attorney-General had recommended that the proposed up to five-year sentence for creating an image that was not shared was an “unjust punishment”.
