Austrian MEP urges EU to enforce ban on AI undressing apps

Austrian Green MEP Lena Schilling says she felt disgusted after discovering nude deepfakes made from images of her first press conference. She has urged the EU to ensure its planned ban on apps that use AI to undress people is enforced, warning that sexualised deepfakes can make politics more hostile to women and deter them from public life.

A report by the Berlin-based thinktank Agora Digitale Transformation found that 50 MEPs, including 46 women, had been targeted by sexualised AI-generated content; an earlier report found 138 female parliamentarians across 22 EU countries had been affected. Women were 33 times more likely than male colleagues to be depicted in or associated with deepfake pornography. A letter initiated by Schilling and German Green MEP Terry Reintke, and signed by 119 MEPs, calls for enforcement mechanisms alongside the EU ban scheduled to take effect on 2 December.