Barcelona: A silent town in Spain's Badajoz province became a talking point after outrage poured in over morphed images of minor girls living there surfaced on the internet. The deepfakes were created using the artificial intelligence (AI) app ClothOff.
Girls as young as 11 and as old as 17 from Almendralejo town were targeted. Describing that the morphed images looked realistic, Dr Miriam Al Adib, mother of one of the victims, said in an Instagram video that the pictures are quite unsettling for everyone, especially her 14-year-old daughter.
Before processing it through the AI app, the predators used to access the images using the social media accounts of the girls. As of now, 20–30 girls aged 11–17 have come forward and claimed that they have been targeted in the gruesome cybercrime, the BBC reported.
"One day my daughter came out of school, and she said, 'Mum, there are photos circulating of me topless'. I asked her if she had taken any photos of herself,” the girl replied “no, Mum, these are fake photos of girls that are being created a lot right now,” recalled María Blanco Rayo, the mother of a 14-year-old girl.
The morphed images were spread in at least four of Almendralejo's five middle schools, El País reported.
The impact of the images was such that the girls wouldn’t even leave their house, Rayo told the BBC. ''If I didn't know my daughter's body, this photo looks real. You, (the culprits) are not aware of the damage you are causing. Using images to create this disgusting material and distributing them is a very serious crime,'' she said.
Local police have identified 11 boys from the area with direct or indirect involvement in the creation of deep fakes. They either created those images or circulated them on WhatsApp and Telegram groups. Deepfakes are manipulative synthetic media that replaces or alters images digitally.
The police have so far received complaints from 11 minor girls. The parents of the affected children have also set up a support group to help them through the ordeal.