By Alex Laurie

Deepfake abuse isn’t the future. It’s happening to children now.

The recent Newcastle case - in which a headteacher was sentenced for possessing AI-generated indecent images of children - should have ended any lingering belief that deepfake abuse is a future concern.

It is already here; the victims are real, and our legal framework is lagging dangerously behind.

For young people, deepfake technology has arrived in an online environment that is already hostile. Tools for generating synthetic sexual imagery are no longer niche or technical; they are cheap, accessible and often built into the same platforms children use every day.

On sites like X, this kind of content is not just available - it is actively pushed into young users’ feeds by algorithms designed to boost engagement.

Synthetic sexual imagery obliterates the concept of digital........

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