United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) was the target of the distribution of what appeared to be intimate images. Tsao responded by saying he would pursue legal action against the distributors. Intimate images generated using artificial intelligence (AI) are more than a civil rights issue, regardless of whether the perpetrator is the image creator or a distributor.
In 2020, Chu Yu-chen (朱玉宸), also known as Xiaoyu (小玉) on YouTube, created deepfake videos that superimposed women’s faces onto existing pornographic videos and sold them for a profit of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390). Despite more than 100 people coming forward as victims of his creation, and the distribution and sale of the videos, Chu was only found guilty of contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) and was handed a prison sentence of just five and a half years.
That sentencing led to questions about the leniency of the Criminal Code, and revealed the helplessness and aggravation of criminal law when grappling with issues of new technological crimes.
To resolve that legal gap, lawmakers in 2023 criminalized deepfake images and added specific language for crimes that infringed upon sexual privacy and fake sexual images, effectively deterring much of the creation and distribution of such content.
Today, if one attempts to distribute or de facto unlawfully distributes, transmits, delivers or otherwise publicly displays such imagery — or uses other methods or similar technological techniques to create fake sexual images of others — and causes damage to the party being depicted, Article 319-4, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code could be used to hand the perpetrator a sentence of up to five years imprisonment, detain them or be combined with a monetary fine of up to NT$500,000.
Even if a perpetrator is not the creator of the AI-generated sexual imagery, if they distribute, transmit, deliver or publicly display such images, and cause damage to the party being depicted in the imagery, Paragraph 2 of the same article could be used to hand similar penalties and punishments. If the perpetrator is intent on profiting from such imagery, then Paragraph 3 of the same article could be used to imprison the perpetrator for up to seven years, which can be combined with a monetary fine of up to NT$700,000.
None of these punishments are considered light. The legal rights and interests being protected from such crimes show that it is not simply an infringement of a person’s reputation, privacy and other conventional personal rights, but also an infringement on the right to agency regarding one’s own personal data in an era of new and evolving technologies. Thus, lawmakers do not define that kind of criminal act as Antragsdelikt, or “no trial without complaint” — in other words, prosecutors are empowered by Article 228, Paragraph 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) to initiate a criminal investigation regardless of whether the infringed party has filed suit.
Using technological means to generate sexual images has only become easier with increasingly powerful AI. It is far easier to distribute such imagery online and even harder to remove it — even with the passage of time. That could cause long-term physical and emotional torment and suffering for people who fall victim to such crimes.
As such, with the addition of that and other acts into the Criminal Code, society cannot take it and other similar incidents lightly, regardless of the person’s financial or socio-political background.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Law at Aletheia University.
Translated by Tim Smith
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