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A Victorian man has been jailed for 13 months after police uncovered 793 realistic child abuse images on seized hardware.
The images were uncovered after the Australian Federal Police and Victorian police executed a search warrant in May 2023, seizing a tower unit and disk station.
The man was found by members of the Victorian Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team, which includes state and federal police representatives, engaging in graphic conversations about children on the internet and sharing child abuse material.
He was sentenced in late July, having pled guilty to two offences, including the production of child abuse material and using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material.
AFP Superintendent Bernard Geason said that all images that depict child exploitation, whether AI-generated or even drawn, are punishable under Commonwealth law.
“Anything that depicts the abuse of children – whether that’s videos, images, drawings or stories – is child abuse material,” Superintendent Geason said.
“The AFP and its law enforcement partners will continue to identify and prosecute individuals creating and sharing this abhorrent content and put them before the courts.”
The sentencing comes as the AFP continues to warn about the risks of child abuse, with the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation recently revealing that only half of Australian parents talk to their children about child safety.
Despite the images being AI-generated, some images were based on real children, Victorian Police Detective Superintendent Tim McKinney said.
“We are encountering a rise in the reporting of offending where AI is being used in the creation of child abuse material,” Superintendent McKinney said.
“In some instances, real children are being used to help create these images, objectifying these innocent victims, most of whom are unaware their images are being used in this way. AI that depicts child abuse material is illegal and punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment.”
It comes as a Victorian schoolboy was arrested for creating and distributing AI-generated images of some 50 female students at Bacchus Marsh Grammar.
The arrest prompted Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, to call on AI companies to do more to ensure that their platforms are not used for the distribution of AI-generated pornography.
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