ATLANTA — It’s a growing problem playing out on your child’s phone- artificial intelligence being used to create sexually explicit images of children from photos already posted on the internet.
April is sexual assault awareness month, and advocates say it’s a perfect time to educate parents about advanced technology targeting kids.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, over the past two years, there were more than 7,000 reports of AI being used to sexually exploit children.
“All you need is a picture from prom, or a picture from cheerleading or anything like that, that’s posted up on Instagram, and someone can grab and then make a deep fake image out of it,” said Stefan Turkheimer, Vice President of Public Policy for the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, or RAINN.
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Jennifer Simmons Kaleba of RAINN said the 7,000 number is “a data point, but it is by no means the full picture.”
RAINN is based in Washington, DC, and runs a national sexual assault hotline.
“We don’t collect data on the visitors who come to the hotline, so it’s anonymous. We’re hearing things like ‘babysitter’ or ‘my teacher’ or things that indicate that the people who are connecting to the hotline are indeed minors,” Kaleba said.
Kaleba said there are signs parents can watch for.
“Look for the secretiveness hiding the phone, the withdrawal, the kind of symptoms that you see in a sexual abuse case with a child or anybody really,” Kaleba said.
Turkheimer has worked at the federal level on the “Take it Down Act.”
It’s legislation with bipartisan support and the endorsement of First Lady Melania Trump.
It would allow sexual abuse survivors to take their images off the internet. The act has passed in the Senate and is now being reviewed in the House.
“And once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law,” President Donald Trump said.
Turkheimer adds that, like all legislation, the bill will take time. But the time and effort are worth it.
“Is it going to be incredibly safe to have your kids on the internet at any time? Maybe not. But we can make it safer. And we can do that by not accepting what we have,” Turkheimer said.
US Sen. Raphael Warnock is listed as a co-sponsor on the Take it Down Act.
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