Crest Advisory is currently running an open, anonymous survey to help inform and build UK Policing guidance around deepfakes. If you are aged 18 and over and have had an intimate or sexual deepfake made of you or shared without your consent, Crest Advisory wants to hear from you. Crest Advisory works to ‘’identify and help solve complex problems arising from crime, vulnerability and other social harms.’’
This short and anonymous survey has been designed to allow those who have experienced ‘deepfake’ intimate image abuse to feed into Crest Advisory’s programme of research into the social and emotional impacts of ‘deepfakes’, or synthetic media.
The anonymised findings from the survey will inform guidance for policing to improve the way they respond to and support victims of deepfakes who choose to report to the police.
This survey allows you to share your experiences in your own words, at a time and place of your choice and with the ability to skip past any questions that you don’t want to answer.
The Survey Will be Open Until the 9th May.
Please click here to complete the survey and find out more, or get in contact with the research team via email (contact isabella.ross@crestadvisory.comand jessica.hull@crestadvisory.com).
This research is there to capture the experiences of victims of deepfake violence against women and girls (VAWG), including the impacts that it has had on them, and their experiences of or barriers to reporting to the police and other services. This will work towards developing policing guidance directly informed by lived experiences and improving responses going forwards.
What is a ‘Deepfake’?
Synthetic sexual content is often referred to as ‘deepfake’ content. It is a form of intimate image abuse and refers to any sexual or nude media created using AI that represents the likeness of another individual without their consent.Examples of synthetic sexual content can include, but are not limited to:
● AI-generated content that swaps someone’s face with another person’s nude body.
● Content generated by AI, sometimes using ‘nudification’ apps, alters a clothed image to make it appear nude.
Where can I go for support?
1. Revenge Porn Helpline
The Revenge Porn Helpline is available to anyone over the age of 18 in the UK who needs support with intimate image abuse including synthetic sexual content.
If someone has created a 'deepfake' or synthetic sexual content of you and has shared or is threatening to share this, we would encourage you (if you are over 18) to contact the Revenge Porn Helpline for support and guidance.
2. StopNCII.org
StopNCII.org is a free global tool for adults (18+) to protect intimate images from being shared across partnering platforms. If a 'deepfake' or synthetic sexual image of you has been shared without consent across participating platforms, then you can use StopNCII.org to prevent it from being shared on these platforms.
Intimate images are never transferred nor saved on StopNCII.org, instead, the image is hashed and never leaves the user's device; ensuring user privacy.
3. Emotional Support
The potential impact of harmful and sexual synthetic content, especially when it affects individuals personally, can be incredibly distressing. However, there is support available to support your mental health and wellbeing.
We would encourage you to reach out to friends and family that you trust but you can find plenty of services that can signpost towards emotional support on the Revenge Porn Helpline and Report Harmful Content websites.
To find out more about deepfakes, the current legislation, and information about intimate image abuse in the UK, you can visit the Revenge Porn Helpline’s website.
