“Back to school” means, for many, new backpacks, new teachers, and new classmates. For survivors of online or offline sexual violence, however, it can mean returning to the scene of the crime. For others, it means walking into a new kind of threat they never could have imagined.  

As the first law firm in the US dedicated to fighting for victims of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA), we’ve worked with underage victims from the beginning. We’ve helped victims of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) navigate reporting to police while minimizing risks to the victim, advocated with schools to address IBSA happening in schools and represented clients during the Title IX process to hold the offenders accountable, connected clients with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to assist with content removal, and helped clients achieve financial justice through civil legal action.  

When we started representing young people dealing with sexual abuse, we had to show people that there was no longer a clear divide between life online and offline. The courts, schools, and society as a whole didn’t necessarily understand the ways technology could be weaponized. So the response was often inadequate, which, for children especially, could have devastating consequences. In many ways, society has had to catch up to the realities of abuse in the digital age, and we still have progress to be made. But the advancement of generative AI over recent years presents new, even more dangerous ways to perpetuate and amplify abuse – and now more than ever, we need to know what’s happening and how we can protect ourselves and our children.  

Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) and deepfakes in schools: what we’re seeing 

We represent students across the country dealing with IBSA in various forms. For over a decade, we’ve worked with students dealing with: 

  • Peer-on-peer IBSA – usually after a breakup, an obsessed ex disseminates an intimate photo or video of the victim. If anyone depicted in the content is underage, the content is child sexual abuse material (CSAM), meaning that possession or dissemination can carryies serious criminal consequences. In extreme cases, some jurisdictions do not distinguish between victims and perpetrators where CSAM is involved, and this may place the victim in a legally vulnerable position. 
  • Nonconsensual dissemination of content from hacking – our firm has seen a wave of victims over the years contacting us with after their intimate content has been leaked resulting from their Snapchat being hacked. Many victims were underage in their content, and the content had been extracted from the “My Eyes Only” vault on Snapchat, which is supposed to be a secure folder accessible only to the user. 
  • Criminalization of child victims of IBSA – because any intimate content depicting a child is CSAM, in some situations, child victims of IBSA have been charged criminally because of their own content – even though they did not disseminate it themselves. This dynamic may also leave victims of IBSA involving intimate content that depicts them underage afraid to report that abuse or vulnerable to threats of legal action from the perpetrator. We see this as a grave failure of our justice system, and we help victims navigate criminalization and retaliation.  
  • Violations of Title IX: In 2015-16, we opened three Title IX federal investigations with the Department of Education (DOE) against New York City, exposing the NYC DOE for its pattern and practice of discriminating against girls of color who reported sex crimes by dismissing and even punishing victims for coming forward. One of our clients was assaulted by a group of boys in a school stairwell and then suspended herself. As a result of our fight against sexual violence, NYC paid a $950,000 settlement to our client. As with law enforcement, schools have the ability to improve or worsen a victim’s experience, and when a school violates Title IX requirements, we step in. This can include anything from advocacy to civil litigation against the school or district. 

With the rise of AI in recent years, students now confront new challenges relating to their digital and sexual privacy: 

  • Peer-on-peer deepfakes – we’ve seen cases in both K-12 and college campus settings involving students creating and disseminating AI-generated nude images or videos (“deepfakes”) of classmates. This has involved situations where the perpetrator, victim, or both were underage, or 18+ in higher education settings. We’ve encountered scenarios where deepfakes were created by one individual, but in others, it was a group endeavor – often a group of boys creating deepfakes of female classmates and sharing them with each other in group chats. Disseminating AI-generated intimate content can be just as harmful as IBSA created without deepfake technology, but not everyone understands this. AI-generated CSAM may also carry criminal penalties for creation, possession, or dissemination — even if the perpetrators are underage themselves. 
  • Staff-on-student deepfakes – technology, and in particular AI tools, have made it easier than ever for predators to abuse children by offering perpetrators the means to find, contact, groom, and harm their victims. With the widespread availability of nudification apps, predators can also sexually exploit their victims without ever even interacting with them in person. We’ve seen a disturbing wave across the country of pedophile teachers creating CSAM with AI. This is not only wrong, but criminal in many jurisdictions. And we are prepared to hold these predators accountable.  
  • Student-on-staff deepfakes – no one is immune to the risk of being exploited with AI, including teachers and other school staff. This can not only create devastating consequences for the victim themselves but also disrupts other students’ education. Reports have popped up across the country of students creating deepfakes of their teachers, in some cases impersonating them for financial gain online, and in another story in Iowa, using AI to depict teachers in pedophilic positions and with weapons.  

When a school campus experiences a deepfake crisis, there is usually more than one victim (although, in cases of stalking for example, there may be one target). As Senior Associate Katie McKay (and leader of our Title IX practice area) puts it:

When victims of AI-generated intimate content describe the impact, they often use the same words others use when their images were genuinely created and shared without their consent. And children going through it experience a higher risk of self-harm and suicidality after experiencing a consent violation like this where they feel they have no control. It’s a lot harder for them to see a reality without their problem — which is why we handle these cases with so much care and always want to make sure the child is stable and also receiving mental health support and that their agency is taken into account in our decision-making.  

Regardless of the provenance of these images, we know from experience that there’s nothing “fake” about “deepfakes.” The impact on survivors is very real.  

 

What we can do for students or staff dealing with IBSA and deepfakes

When working with survivors, especially those who are underage, we take a holistic approach, really getting to know the client and what’s happening in their life.  Not every path is right for everyone.  

Deepfakes are a relatively new form of IBSA, and any form of IBSA (or other consent violation) can make a person feel out of control.  So, it can help a person take back control to find out their options and allow them to participation in the decision as to what is the best next step for them.  

We understand that there are many factors that go into what a survivor wants. Some want to go guns blazing to achieve all forms of justice available to them, and others decide their priority is to de-escalate, contain as much of the content as possible, and put an end to it, so they never have to think about it again. Many lie somewhere in between. There is no “right” path – and as a law firm that’s worked with survivors since we opened our doors in 2014, we take very seriously our role in showing our clients all of the paths available to them and restoring their agency.  

Some of the ways we handle IBSA/deepfake cases on behalf of our young clients:  

  • Navigating reporting to police and understanding your rights under the Take it Down Act (as well as other local statutes, when relevant), which federally criminalizes the nonconsensual dissemination of intimate images (NDII), including images that were artificially-generated. In cases involving underage victims, we can also help liaise with law enforcement to avoid criminalization of the victim.  
  • Advocating with schools on behalf of underage victims and their families to initiate investigation and appropriate accommodations to protect the victims’ safety and wellbeing and their equal access to education. 
  • Assistance with filing Title IX reports for victims in K-12 schools and on college campuses and representation through Title IX investigations and disciplinary proceedings to ensure that survivors’ rights are honored in the process, the requirements of Title IX are followed, and survivors get a fair opportunity to present their evidence.  
  • Evaluating civil options against individual perpetrators, entities (such as schools or universities if they mishandle the Title IX process, or school districts if the violations are the result of a failure at the policy level), and product liability if we know the product(s) used to generate deepfakes (i.e., nudification apps or websites).  

 

If you or your child is dealing with deepfakes, other IBSA, or any other consent violation, you don’t have to deal with it alone. Find out your options now by contacting us here or calling (646) 666-8908.