Sites allowing AI-generated child abuse images taken offline in Australia

SYDNEY: Three websites allowing users to create child sexual exploitation material with artificial intelligence have gone offline in Australia, the country's Internet regulator said Thursday.

Canberra's eSafety said the sites had received over 100,000 visits from Australia and had been linked to a number of high-profile cases of AI-generated child sexual exploitation material of students at local schools.

AFP understands the websites were run by the UK-based Itai Tech, which was fined last week by UK regulator Ofcom for failing to include age verification measures.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the website had "failed to put in safeguards to prevent its services being used to create child sexual exploitation material", and was marketing features allowing users to undress "any girl".

"With this major provider blocking their use by Australians we believe it will have a tangible impact on the number of Australian school children falling victim to AI-generated child sexual exploitation," Inman Grant said.

The firm was sent a formal warning by eSafety in September and threatened with a fine of up to AUD$49.5 million (US$32.3mil/RM133.43mil) over "alarming" features clearly targeted at children.

The proliferation of AI tools has led to new forms of abuse impacting children, including pornography scandals at universities and schools worldwide, where teenagers create sexualised images of their classmates.

A Save the Children survey this year found that one in five young people in Spain have been victims of deepfake nudes, with those images shared online without their consent.

Australia has been at the forefront of global efforts to curb Internet harm, especially that targeted at children.

Landmark laws come into effect next month restricting under-16s from social media – one of the world's toughest crackdowns on popular sites like Tiktok, Snapchat and Youtube. – AFP