Deepfake crimes 2024
Request
I would like to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act please:
1.Between 31st January 2024 and 30th September 2024, how many reports did your police force receive alleging the offence in Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 of sharing a photograph or film which appears to show another person in an intimate state without consent, commonly known as 'fake porn' or 'deepfake porn.' Such images have been digitally manipulated to look like someone else without their consent. Please only include reports of 'deepfake porn' or 'fake porn' where an image has been digitally altered to make it sexually explicit and NOT other intimate image
abuse offences.
Please can you tell me:
1.The number of alleged offences.
2.The number of alleged victims.
3.The sex and age of victim(s). Where you are unable to provide exact age please state whether the alleged victim is over 18 years of age or under 18 years of age.
4.The number of perpetrators.
2. Between 31st January 2024 and 30th September 2024, how many times did your police force charge someone under Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 of sharing a photograph or film which appears to show another person in an intimate state without consent, commonly known as 'fake porn' or 'deepfake porn.' Such images have been digitally manipulated to look like someone else without their consent. Please only include cases of 'deepfake porn' or 'fake porn' where an image has been digitally altered to make it sexually explicit and NOT other intimate image abuse offences.
Please can you tell me:
1.The number of alleged offences.
2.The number of alleged victims.
3.The sex and age of victim(s). Where you are unable to provide exact age please state whether the
alleged victim is over 18 years of age or under 18 years of age.
4.The number of perpetrators.
For clarity and to help you locate the information, I am asking for reports/charges under the
following law, Section 66B, Sexual Offences Act 2003:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/66B
I made a similar request earlier this year but have amended it in order to make it clearer and capture 3 more months worth of data.
If information is covered by any exemption, please disclose such information that is not covered by the exemptions. I am sure you will agree that these matters are of the utmost public interest. The aforementioned law criminalising the sharing of digitally altered, sexually explicit images commonly known as 'deepfake' or 'fake porn' only came into force in January 2024 and it is in the public interest to see what impact it is having. If you require any further information please let me know.
Your request has been considered under the Freedom Information Act 2000 (FOIA), and after careful consideration, we regret to inform you that we are unable to provide the information you have requested.
Response
Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt), to provide you the applicant with a notice which:
a. states that fact,
b. specifies the exemption in question and
c. states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
The following exemption(s) apply to the disclosure of the information:
Exemption applied - Section 12(1) Where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
We hold information that falls under the scope of your request. However, locating/retrieving/extracting the information would exceed the cost limit set out by section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
Reasons for applying exemption 12(1)
I approached our Performance Review Unit. The initial search of this system returned 175 Incident reports regarding crimes involving ‘deepfakes’. The data you are requesting is not recorded in an easily retrievable format and to provide the level of data you require would require a manual review of all the records. At a conservative 10 mins per incident this process would take over 29 hrs. In essence, we would have to review and manually check all relevant incidents to extract the level of detail of the cases that met the criteria of your request; this process would take much longer than 18 hours' work.
The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 provide that the cost limit for non-central government public authorities is £450. This must be calculated at the rate of £25 per hour, providing an effective time limit of 18 hours.
Guidance from the Information Commissioner to public authorities is that where one part of a request is reasonably estimated to exceed the appropriate limit then the authority is not obliged to consider or comply with the remainder of the request up to the point at which the appropriate limit has been reached.
Exemption applied - Section 16 Advice
Under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, my duty to provide advice and assistance to anyone making a request for information, please be advised some information relative to your request can be located:
'Fake porn' or 'Deepfake porn' Offences 2024 | South Yorkshire Police
Please note, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording systems and information assets.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.