The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said that making or obtaining artificial intelligence (AI)-generated explicit images of children is a crime punishable by a jail sentence, after activists urged the government to regulate such content.
Images involving children made up 52 percent of all complaints child safety advocates receive about sexual exploitation or blackmail through online content, ECPAT Taiwan told a news conference in Taipei.
The group said it had identified 58 Web sites that offer undressing or face swapping functions to create deepfake pornography, including minors as subjects.
Photo: Taipei Times
Taiwan should join the global coalition of governments acting against those overseas platforms, ECPAT Taiwan said.
Ministry of Health and Welfare Department of Protective Services Director Kuo Tsai-jung (郭彩榕) said the ministry has not received complaints about AI-generated child porn, but would exercise greater vigilance on the matter.
Creating, reproducing, distributing or possessing AI-generated child porn is an offense punishable by a prison sentence under 2023 amendments to the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例), she said.
The offense is punishable by a sentence of one to seven years in prison and a fine of NT$100,000 to NT$1 million (US$3,170 to US$31,696), she said.
The definition of child porn is any sexual visual or audio content featuring a minor, including deepfakes or drawings, she said.
Kuo urged members of the public to report online-based sexually exploitative content to the Sexual Image Abuse Center so that officials can remove the material from the Internet and initiate legal action against the culprits.
The ministry would conduct internal deliberations to decide whether new regulations are necessary to deal with the use of generative AI platforms in making child porn, she said.
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