Case Explained: Ignorance remains significant stumbling block to digital crime prosecution, warns expert – Legal Perspective

Her comments come amid anger over Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok’s image creation feature, which has been used to create sexualised deepfakes of women and children.

Musk has been threatened with fines, and several countries have recently pushed back publicly against the tool over its creation of sexually explicit imagery.

Some users reportedly used Grok to generate pictures of women and children undressed, sometimes putting them in sexualised positions. 

Sadleir says while laws and evidence exist, the major challenge remains enforcement due to a lack of knowledge and training. 

“We’ve got the laws, and often the evidence creates itself, but you go to most police stations, and they literally have no idea about any of this. They want to see the content, which just does further harm to victims.”

She adds that teenagers, who are often the victims of these types of crimes, are also mostly oblivious of their rights and the law in the digital age.

“It’s so important that these kids understand what their rights are in the digital age, and also that kids understand that teenagers are actually being arrested and prosecuted for image-based violence, amongst other digital harms, particularly when it comes to sexualised underage content.

 “Under the Films and Publications Act, as amended, if you show or distribute content which is of a private sexual nature, it can be a video, it can be an image, without the consent of the person depicted, it’s a R300 000 fine and four years’ imprisonment,” she warns. 

Following growing backlash, Grok has turned off its image creation feature for non-paying users. 

 The change means many of the tool’s users can no longer generate or edit images using the AI. Paying customers must give the platform their credit card information and personal details.

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