Almendralejo, a quiet town in the south of Spain, is in a state of shock after learning that, without their knowledge, nude images of minor girls from the locality are circulating on social networks, generated by artificial intelligence, reports News.ro citing a BBC report.
Spanish Police carPhoto: Jose Hernandez / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
The images were created using photos of the targeted girls in which they appeared fully clothed, many of which were taken from their own social media accounts. The photos were then processed by an application that generates an imaginary pose of the person without clothes on.
So far, almost 30 girls between the ages of 11 and 17, from Almendralejo or nearby, have accused that they are victims of using the application.
“One day, my daughter came out of school and said to me: ‘Mom, there are pictures of me topless,'” said María Blanco Rayo, the mother of a 14-year-old girl. “I asked her if she took any nude pictures, and she said, ‘No, mom, there are fake pictures of girls, which are being created a lot at the moment, and there are other girls in my class who this happened'”, the woman said. She says that the parents of the 28 affected girls have formed a support group in the city.
Police are currently investigating and, according to reports, at least 11 local boys have been identified as being involved in either creating the images or circulating them through the WhatsApp and Telegram applications. Investigators are also looking into the claim that an attempt was made to blackmail one of the girls by using a fake picture of her.
The impact that the spread of these images has had on the affected girls varies. Blanco Rayo says her daughter is coping well, but other girls “don’t even want to leave the house.”
A female doctor took advantage of her celebrity to publicly reveal the case
Almendralejo is a picturesque town with a population of just over 30,000 inhabitants, known for the production of olives and red wine, in the southwestern province of Badajoz. But he is not used to the sudden attention that this case has attracted, which has made the city to be on the front page of national newspapers, notes the BBC. This is largely due to the efforts of the mother of one of the girls, Miriam Al Adib. She is a gynecologist and used her already prominent social media profile to launch this issue into the center of Spanish public debate.
Although many of the AI-edited images were likely created over the summer, the case only came to light in recent days after Dr Adib posted a video reassuring the affected girls and their parents.
“I didn’t know how many children the images had, if they had been uploaded to pornographic sites – I had all these fears,” she says. “When you’re the victim of a crime, if you’re robbed, for example, you file a complaint and you don’t hide because the other person hurt you. But with sexual crimes, the victim often feels shame and hides and feels responsible . So I wanted to convey this message: it’s not your fault” – wrote the doctor.
Legislative loopholes
The suspects in this case are between 12 and 14 years old. Spanish law does not specifically cover the generation of images of a sexual nature when adults are involved, although the creation of such material with the help of minors could be considered child pornography.
Another possible charge would be that of violating privacy laws.
In Spain, minors can face criminal charges only from the age of 14 and up.
The case caused concern even for the locals who are not involved. “Those of us who have children are very worried,” says Gema Lorenzo, a local woman who has a 16-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. “You are worried about two things: if you have a son, you are afraid that he could have done something like this; and if you have a daughter, you are even more worried, because it is an act of violence”, the woman confesses.
Francisco Javier Guerra, a local painter and decorator, says the parents of the boys involved are to blame. “They should have done something before, like take their phones or install an app that tells them what their kids are doing with their phone,” he says.
It is not the first time that such a case becomes front page news in Spain. At the beginning of this year, AI-generated topless images of the singer Rosalía were posted on social networks.
“Women from different parts of the world have written to me explaining that this happened to them and that they don’t know what to do,” says Dr. Miriam Al Adib. “Right now this is happening all over the world. The only difference is that in Almendralejo we made a fuss about it,” she added.
The concern is that applications like those used in Almendralejo are becoming more common.
Javier Izquierdo, head of the child protection department of the national police’s cybercrime unit, told Spanish media that this type of crime is no longer limited “to the guy who downloads child pornography from the dark web or from some forum hidden by on the internet”. He added: “Obviously, this is still happening, but now the new challenges we face are the access that minors have at such a young age (to such technology), as is the case here.” , the official said.
