Germany moves to tighten penalties for sexual deepfake pornography

Bavarian Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich (CSU) is urging a maximum prison term of five years for the creation and distribution of sexualised deepfakes, arguing they cause damage comparable to bodily injury and are used for bullying, revenge porn and fraud, especially against women and girls. He says the current draft law, which allows up to two years, does not go far enough.

In Berlin, police are investigating two secondary‑school pupils who used artificial‑intelligence tools to generate nude images of female classmates and shared them online. The school suspended the students, informed the community and involved the police. The case occurs alongside a federal draft law presented by Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig in April that seeks to close loopholes on pornographic deepfakes and undercover identity abuse.