10 July 2025
NSW shadow minister for women and Member for North Shore Felicity Wilson has introduced legislation to the state parliament aimed at criminalising the non-consensual creation and distribution of sexually explicit deepfake content.
The Crimes Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Bill 2025 proposes a series of changes to the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), including new offences for the production and sharing of synthetic sexual material and mechanisms for the removal of such content.
The bill responds to growing concern over the use of artificial intelligence tools to generate sexually explicit images and videos that falsely depict real people. Wilson cited recent incidents involving teachers, workers and students across NSW as evidence of what she described as a “rising form of AI-powered abuse.”
“This isn’t a niche issue, this is happening in our schools, in our workplaces and in our neighbourhoods,” Wilson told parliament. “Deepfakes are traumatising women and girls by stripping them of their dignity, and right now our laws don’t protect them.”
The proposed bill introduces:
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Offences for producing and distributing sexually explicit deepfakes;
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Penalties for threats to share such material, including through private channels;
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Court powers to order the removal and destruction of synthetic abuse content; and
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A legal definition of deepfakes encompassing synthetic or altered images that falsely depict a person in a sexual context.
The legislation would place NSW among the first Australian jurisdictions to specifically target this category of digitally enabled sexual abuse. Although federal laws, such as those under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth), provide pathways for victims to seek removal of image-based abuse, state-level criminal law reform has so far lagged behind the technological capabilities driving deepfake creation.
Wilson criticised the current legal framework as inadequate and said the bill was designed to give victims legal recourse in the face of growing harm.
“If it’s not your body, it’s not your right – and that principle must be written into law,” she said. “This Bill will help stop the abuse, hold perpetrators accountable, and protect people from this exploitation.”