The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office is investigating two cases of sexual photographs of minors manipulated with artificial intelligence (AI) that were later disseminated through networks. The Public Ministry also suspects that the authors of the manipulation and subsequent dissemination are also minors.
In the two open investigations, which are being studied by the Barcelona Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office because both victims are minors, the authors have manipulated real photographs using artificial intelligence until they were able to convert them into sexual images. They would then have published them on social networks. Preliminary proceedings have been opened, although no complaint has yet been filed by the Prosecutor’s Office.
This same month of October, the National Police arrested a minor in Súria (Barcelona) who was dedicated to capturing images of other minors from the window of his home, removing their clothes using artificial intelligence and then sharing the photographs of supposed nudes on the Internet. . The agents who arrested the minor found a lot of computer material during the search of the home and, after analyzing the devices that were in his room, they confirmed the storage of files with child pornography, many of extreme hardness. He distributed them massively on various online platforms and instant messaging applications.
The investigation began after detecting more than 300 pedophile files advertised on social networks. The person who distributed them also offered to transform any photograph of a minor into a pornographic image. When the author of the distribution was located, the police verified that he was also a minor and later discovered that he had been carrying out this activity since he was 14 years old.
The Prosecutor’s Office has warned of the difficulties involved in identifying the authors of these crimes because the companies responsible for the networks in which these manipulated images are disseminated are normally based in foreign countries and this requires them to carry out rogatory commissions. and other judicial mechanisms. This was explained during the presentation of the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office Report 2022 by the delegate prosecutor of the specialty against Violence against Women in Barcelona, ??Maria Jesús Méndez, who has warned of the difficulty and danger of evidence in crimes with Artificial intelligence.
For its part, regarding adults, the Prosecutor’s Office has detected in recent years an increase in cases of so-called revenge porn: using images of sexual content of partners or ex-partners with the aim of coercing or threatening them. In 2023, three accusations of this crime have been filed. This increase in crimes, detected by the Violence against Women area of ??the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office, grows in parallel with the increase in the use of mobile phones and social networks. “There is a lot of bullying, a lot of threats, coercion and harassment,” detailed Méndez, who in any case points out that they do not even reach 10% of the annual cases. The prosecutor has highlighted the increase in sexual content. Cases of the use of images of sexual content in sexist violence are usually investigated as crimes of coercion, harassment and threats. This last criminal offense is the one that has increased the most in the last year.
Furthermore, Méndez has stressed that new technologies can contribute to the crime of harassment, but that they also “help a lot because they are also the condemnation of many” harassers since, sometimes, they record the crimes.
The delegate prosecutor for Violence against Women in Barcelona has also explained that crimes “are increasing, as is crime in general, unfortunately”, she warns of the increase in complaints of cases of sexist violence after the pandemic, as episodes have surfaced of abuse hidden by confinement since many people lived with the aggressor and reported later.
The prosecutor has highlighted the “greater sensitivity of society” and the increase in citizen collaboration regarding gender violence, and has encouraged people to report and continue fighting so that prevention is better than repair.
“We all know that there is a step from love to hate. People file complaints, but then some people do not want to testify or withdraw the complaint, so if we do not have witnesses, it is difficult for the case to move forward,” he lamented.
The crimes they deal with the most are mistreatment, violations of sentences and measures, and during 2022 some 3,439 urgent proceedings were initiated; 5,321 preliminary proceedings; 1,231 abbreviated procedures; 47 summaries and 10 juries.
