Cork TD says Coco's Law amendment will show 'zero tolerance' for AI fakes

An amendment to Coco’s Law, which demonstrates “zero tolerance” for the use of sexualised AI deepfakes, will now proceed to the next stage for further consideration.

A motion to the amend Coco’s Law was tabled in the Dáil, achieving widespread cross-party support for the criminalisation of AI generated sex abuse material.

Coco’s Law, officially known as the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, criminalises the non-consensual distribution of intimate images and online bullying under Irish legislation, however, there has been ongoing ambiguity surrounding the legality of using AI to generate sex abuse material.

Amendments proposed include the prohibition of using AI to create non-consensual intimate or harmful imagery; and to increase the timeframe under which summary proceedings for an offence may be instituted.

Sinn Féin Cork East TD, Pat Buckley said the motion, which was brought before a private sitting of government officials was not opposed, and will now proceed to the second stage committee for further deliberation.

Speaking to The Echo, Mr Buckley said the amendment would demonstrate a "zero tolerance” approach to using AI for the generation and creation of nonconsensual intimate images and videos and clarify that the creation of such is illegal under Irish law.

“It’s an amendment to take out an anomaly that makes perfect sense,” said Mr Buckley.

“There was a lot of speakers on it, it had cross-party support, which is positive.

“It's going in the right direction – it’ll go to the second stage committee now.

“Creating child sexual abuse material through AI is abhorrent, and the amendment will extend the statute of limitations from two to five years, which would allow victims plenty of time to come forward,” he added.

“The change would also give An Garda Síochána enough time to examine personal devices and servers in order to build a strong case, [and] would increase the maximum penalties upon conviction to properly reflect the heinousness of these crimes.

“Cyberbullying is reprehensible and many government TDs and ministers have spoken out in the past few weeks about the need to ensure criminalisation of the generation of sexualised AI deepfakes.”