A Halifax-area woman is suing a man she says used artificial intelligence to make a sexualized deepfake of her as a minor and spread it on the internet.
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“I join many who have come before me in the experience that at every turn I have been failed by the criminal legal system,” reads a written statement from the woman, who The Chronicle Herald is not identifying.
“When you turn to police and the ‘justice’ system, you hope that you’ll be protected and validated. That hasn’t been my experience. I have been traumatized and retraumatized by ‘the process.’”
According to court documents, Mohak Sentil Kumar followed the woman on her Instagram account. The two had attended a Halifax-area high school at the same time and knew of one another but were not otherwise acquainted.
In February 2024, after both had graduated, Kumar reached out to the woman on Facebook Messenger asking for help contacting another former student.
The woman learned from the other former student that Kumar had been contacting multiple female former classmates. The woman then blocked Kumar on her social media accounts.
Days later, she learned that Kumar had taken an image from her social media that showed her and three other young women sitting on the steps of a house. All four women were fully clothed in the picture. The woman was 17 when the photo was taken.
Kumar had used artificial intelligence to make the woman, along with another female in the photo (also a minor at the time), appear naked. He shared the image with at least one other person.
The woman contacted police and Kumar was charged with criminal harassment, sending an obscene picture and distribution of intimate images without consent.
While Kumar pleaded guilty to the first two charges, he fought the last one.
In March, provincial court Judge Bronwyn Duffy found that the law as it stood at the time did not make it illegal to use AI to create an image of a naked body and attach it to an actual person’s face.
“The law does not reflect the technology that exists today, and to combat advancing technologies in the commission of offences requires the dictates of Parliament,” wrote Duffy.
“It is not within the proper jurisdiction of this court to extend the reach of the legislation to include an image that creates a nude body entirely generated by AI using a real, identifiable face of a person as a ‘visual recording of a person’ within the definition of intimate image. It would be a patchwork assembly to take the enormity of artificial intelligence and force-feed it into incompatible legislation. The statute must be revised to respond to such concerns.”
That particular loophole has since been closed by Bill C-16, which came into effect in June.
In a written statement, the woman said the experience was “traumatizing” and that seeking justice through the courts had been “retraumatizing.”
While glad that Bill C-16 closed the loophole, she pointed to how provincial law in Nova Scotia had fallen behind technological advancements.
“I cannot help but wonder: Is the apathy because the harms are overwhelmingly experienced by women and girls? In the almost two-and-a-half years since this happened to me, how many people have been victimized without hope of justice? How many people are victims of similar crimes and don’t even know it?,” reads the woman’s statement.
“I do not accept that ‘AI is so new’ as an excuse for not having amended, up-to-date criminal and civil legislation. I am so relieved and happy that new criminal protections are now in place in Canada with the recent passing of Bill C-16, but it’s bittersweet because I was not protected. I hope Nova Scotia and other provinces take the necessary steps to fix their provincial civil legislation. And do so quickly.”
Emma Arnold, the woman’s lawyer, told The Chronicle Herald that they will have to argue in civil court what failed in criminal court – that producing synthetic intimate images using artificial intelligence is an offence.
“There are definitely still gaps, especially in provincial law,” said Arnold.
“The provincial law’s definition doesn’t explicitly account for synthetically altered images.”
She said she hopes the case pushes the province to enact civil laws that clearly prohibit the production and distribution of deep fakes.
The suit is complicated by the fact that they have not been able to serve Kumar as they haven’t been able to locate him because the address on his bail conditions was no longer accurate.
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