A bill that would criminalize sexually explicit content featuring fictional people generated by artificial intelligence (AI) has recently been referred to detailed review by the Subcommittee of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

The proposal, introduced by Rep. Huh Young and nine other lawmakers of the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), would criminalize the creation, distribution and possession of sexually explicit material made using the technology, even when it does not depict a real person.

The amendment to the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes comes in response to the proliferation of sexually explicit content created using AI and other new technologies, while related harm is rising rapidly.

A report released last month by the state-funded Korean Women’s Development Institute showed that reported digital sex crimes rose 66 percent over nine years, from 9,385 cases in 2015 to 15,612 cases in 2024. Deepfake sex crimes have increased particularly sharply. They accounted for just 31 cases, or 0.3 percent of all reported digital sex crimes, in 2020. The figure jumped more than 17-fold to 550 cases in 2024.

“Rapid advances in AI have made it easy for anyone to create images of virtual people that are difficult to distinguish from real individuals. However, the technology has also been misused to produce and distribute manipulated sexual content that causes sexual humiliation or disgust, which is emerging as a serious social problem,” the legislators said in the proposal.

Under the bill, anyone who uses AI or similar technology to create, edit, combine or process a fictional person or representation that could be mistaken for a real individual into sexually explicit material would face up to seven years in prison or a maximum fine of 50 million won ($36,000).

The same penalties would apply to those who distribute, sell, rent, provide or publicly display such content. People who possess, purchase, store or watch it could face up to three years in prison or fines of up to 30 million won.

The lawmakers say the measure is intended to address a legal gap that has made it difficult to prosecute people who use AI to create sexual content when no real victim can be identified.

In one such case, reported last year by Dong-A Ilbo, a district court in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, acquitted a man who was indicted on charges of distributing sexually explicit deepfake material, with prosecutors alleging that he had shared AI-generated images of nude women in a Telegram chat room. His attorney argued that the images depicted virtual people created by AI. The court said the evidence did not establish whether there were any real victims and acquitted him.