Australian pleads guilty to creating deepfake porn in landmark case

The 19-year-old is the first person to be charged under a new national law. Australian pleads guilty to creating deepfake porn in landmark case Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. William Hamish Yeates will return to court next month A young man with brown hair and a white shirt looks at the camera An Australian teenager has pleaded guilty to creating deepfake pornography, in a landmark case. William Hamish Yeates, 19, is the first person to be charged under a new national law which criminalises the manipulation of sexual images and carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. Experts says deepfake pornography - often created through artificial intelligence technology, and overwhelmingly targeting women and girls - is the new frontier of gendered, image-based abuse and school bullying. Yeates did not comment as he left court after admitting four offences on Wednesday. He will return for a hearing in April. Yeates was previously facing 20 Commonwealth charges, but the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) withdraw some of them after he pleaded guilty to creating or altering sexual material without consent and distributing it, as well as using a carriage service in a harassing or offensive way. The court heard Yeates had distributed images of his alleged victim across multiple X accounts without her consent. A spokesman for Commonwealth prosecutors previously confirmed it was the first prosecution of its kind, though some states also have their own laws relating to deepfake material. Australia's internet regulator, the eSafety Commission, has been warning of the rising threat of AI manipulated material, and has been fighting to ban apps that 'nudify' subjects in Australia. "There is compelling and concerning data that explicit deepfakes have increased on the internet as much as 550% year on year since 2019," Julie Inman Grant wrote after advising parliament on the new laws in 2024. "It's a bit shocking to note that pornographic videos make up 98% of the deepfake material currently online and 99% of that imagery is of women and girls." If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the A blonde woman with a nose ring is staring at the camera. She is wearing a black and white striped t-shirt and is inside a non-descript building Woman's deepfake betrayal by close friend: 'Every moment turned into porn' A man's hand seen typing on a laptop keyboard Creating sexually explicit deepfakes to become a criminal offence in England and Wales The Duke of Sussex combines two of his passions, mental health campaigning and sport, on the second day of an Australia visit. The long-running legal dispute is over a lucrative iron ore project in the top west corner of Australia. There are questions over whether local taxpayers are picking up any of the bill for policing the visit.