21.01.2025

Hearing on legislation criminalizing sexualising deepfakes

Maria Pawelec invited as expert to the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia

On 16 January 2025, Maria Pawelec was invited to the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament to comment on the motion by the Free Democratic Party (FDP) parliamentary group ‘Determined against digital violence: Stop deepfakes and pornfakes!’.

The FDP North Rhine-Westphalia is calling for constructive support for a current draft bill in the Federal Council to include the protection of personal rights against deepfakes in criminal law as well as further measures to better combat image-based sexual violence through deepfakes.

Maria Pawelec issued a statement on this, which can be accessed here: https://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/dokumentenarchiv/Dokument/MMST18-2258.pdf

In it, she welcomes the introduction of specific laws in Germany to clearly criminalise non-consensual sexualising deepfakes, as introduced in other countries such as Australia, several US states and South Korea and currently discussed in the UK, for example. This would close existing legal loopholes and be in line with the need to transpose the new European Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence into national law by 2027. To this end, the draft law currently being discussed in the Federal Council should be clarified to the effect that only sexualising deepfakes are covered. Otherwise, the proposed law would undermine freedom of expression, as it could also ban satirical deepfakes of politicians, for example.

However, regulation alone will not suffice. North Rhine-Westphalia, but also all other federal states, should therefore systematically record cases of non-consensual sexualising deepfakes, strengthen criminal prosecution, maintain and expand psychological and legal support for victims, and organise further training for the police and judiciary as well as broader awareness-raising measures. In the latter area, it is also crucial to raise awareness of the underlying structures of misogyny, discrimination and objectification of women and of the fact that non-consensual sexualising deepfakes are a form of image-based violence.