Deepfake Reports (35A/24)
Request
I would like to submit an FOI request and ask that you tell me the following:
– How many reports your force received from people claiming to be the victim of deepfake photos or videos in the calendar or financial years (whichever is easiest) 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
– How many arrests, if any, were made as a result of these reports in those years
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not interested in reports of intimate images being shared without the person’s consent – I am purely interested in reports of shared explicit images or videos that have been digitally manipulated or created to look like someone else without their consent, known as ‘deepfakes’.
Response
Please find attached our response.
Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.