Over half of teenagers now think it would be worse to have a deepfake nude created and shared of them than a real image, according to research from Internet Matters, the UK non-profit for children’s online safety.

The charity’s latest report, The New Face of Digital Abuse, found that 13% of teens in the UK have had an experience with a nude deepfake, including sending or receiving one, encountering a nude deepfake online, using a nudifying app or someone they know having used a nudifying app. 

According to the data, that means around half a million (529,632) teenagers in the UK, or four teenagers in every class of 30, have had an experience with a nude deepfake.

Teenage boys (18%) are twice as likely as teenage girls (9%) to report an experience with a nude deepfake. However, boys are more likely to be creators of deepfake nudes, and girls are more likely to be the victims.

Nudifying tools are becoming more popular

The evidence shows that ‘nudifying’ models often don’t work on images of boys and men, meaning that an estimated 99% of nude deepfakes feature girls and women. 

Worryingly, these nudifying tools are becoming more popular, and easy to find. The report claims that in September 2024 alone, over 24 million users visited a sample of 34 nudifying sites, with one website seeing 600,000 images processed within the first month of its launch.

Teenage boys said they had used these nudification apps to generate sexually explicit images of their female classmates, often sharing these images on group chats and social media, while girls told Internet Matters they would feel ashamed if it happened to them, and fear that a teacher or parent could think they were genuine.

Growing need for deepfake education

The report, based on a survey of 2,000 parents of children aged 3-17 and 1,000 children aged 9-17 in the UK, also found that despite media attention on the issue, almost two-thirds of children (61%), and 45% of parents said they hadn’t heard or didn’t understand the term ‘deepfake’.

That points to a need for greater education on the problem, since data shows more than a 400% increase in deepfake sexual content between 2022 and 2023 alone, driven by the widespread use of GenAI tools.

With multiple cases of deepfake sextortion having been documented with sometimes tragic consequences for the children involved, families want the government and tech companies to do more to tackle nude deepfakes.

The majority of both teenagers (84%) and parents (80%) said that nudifying tools should be banned for everyone in the UK, including adults, and agreed that more education is needed on the topic of deepfakes, with most teenagers (92%) thinking that the risks of deepfakes should be taught in schools.

“Nude deepfakes are a profound invasion of bodily autonomy and dignity, and their impact can be life shattering. With nudifying tools largely focussed on females, they are having a disproportionate impact on girls,” said Carolyn Bunting, co-CEO of Internet Matters.

“Children have told us about the fear they have that this could happen to them without any knowledge and by people they don’t know. Parents should not be left alone to deal with this concerning issue. It is time for government and industry to take action to prevent it by cracking down on the companies that produce and promote these tools that are used to abuse children.”

Government crack down on deepfakes

Earlier this year, Ofcom, the government’s communications and online safety regulator, released their own report on the prevalence of deepfake technology and the harm it can cause to children.  

Ofcom argued that all the available evidence pointed to the urgent need for stricter regulation, requiring attention from not only the government, but all actors in the technology supply chain, from the developers that create genAI models and related tools, to the platforms that host this technology, through to the user-facing services that act as spaces for deepfake content.

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In April, the Ministry of Justice announced that the creation of sexually explicit deepfake images will be made illegal under UK law, meaning those who create these images without consent, even if there is no intent to share them, will be committing an offence.

“Technology companies, including those developing nudifying apps, have a responsibility to ensure their products cannot be misused to create child sexual abuse content or nonconsensual deepfake content,” said Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls.

“Online deepfake abuse disproportionately impacts woman and girls online, which is why we will work with Internet Matters and other partners to address this as part of our mission to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade.”