Honza Cervenka’s op-ed on how law and tech will have to work together to tackle deepfake porn (Grit Daily News)
Excerpt:
There is no federal law tackling deepfake porn, which means the ability to bring criminal or civil charges differs between states. California and Virginia have laws that allow victims of deepfakes to sue, but the internet isn’t delineated around state lines. If the person creating the deepfake is out of state — or even outside the country — from those they’re targeting, there isn’t a whole lot the law can do to help.
A bigger problem is that the technology is developing faster than the law can catch up. Many states have now passed laws against intimate image abuse (“revenge porn”), but it took 10 – 15 years for us to get there. Deepfakes were not a realistic technical threat when lawyers started to draft these laws, and deepfake content often falls in a gray area in many states where revenge porn is illegal. Unfortunately, we’ll likely have to wait another 15 years before similar legislation covers the threats that are emerging now, by which time we’ll have something else to worry about.