MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish prosecutor's office said on Monday it would probe whether AI-generated images of naked teenaged girls, allegedly created and shared by their peers in southwestern Spain, constituted a crime.
The rise in use by children of such technologies has sparked widespread concern among parents worldwide. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation warned in June that criminals were increasingly using artificial intelligence to create sexually explicit images to intimidate and extort victims.
The prosecutor received a 200-page police dossier with about 20 complaints by families denouncing that fake nude pictures of their daughters generated with an AI app were circulating on social media and chatrooms used by teenagers in Almendralejo, a town of 30,000 people in the Extremadura region.
In Madrid, a court is investigating a similar case involving naked pictures of two young victims they claim were generated by AI, police said.
In Extremadura, teenagers aged between 13 and 15 have been identified as being responsible for generating and sharing the images, according to the police report.
The prosecutor's office said it would analyse the documents before deciding if those older than 14 can be investigated and eventually charged with a crime.
Under Spanish law, minors under 14 cannot be charged, but their cases are sent to child protection services, which can force them to take part in rehabilitation courses.
Miriam al Adib, the mother of one of the victims, said the dissemination of fake pictures on messaging app WhatsApp had been going on since July.
"Many girls were completely terrified and had tremendous anxiety attacks because they were suffering this in silence. They felt bad and were afraid to tell and be blamed for it," she told Reuters.
Al Adib said the debate should be included in the national political agenda, as it combined issues such as bullying, sexual violence, hypersexualisation of children, objectification of women and ease of access to pornography at a young age.
Fernando Miro, a professor of criminal law at Miguel Hernandez University and an AI advisor to the Council of Europe, told Reuters any criminal liability in this case would depend on the age of the perpetrators.
If older than 14, they could face charges related to child pornography and perhaps also crimes against personal honour, image or moral integrity, he added.