Canadian Heritage committee  The first thing you have to ask is why a nude image of a woman is so damaging. Why is there a reputational harm from that being shared? What kind of cultural response do we have to women's sexuality so that it's specifically women who are targeted with this—so that 99% of pornographic deepfakes are of women?

Canadian Heritage committee  The difference between manufacturing a computer or a phone versus AI technology is that, even if the initial software is developed by a larger company, it's now being made open source. Once it's open source, that code can be modified or appropriated, and there's really no way to take it back out of the public domain once it exists there.

Canadian Heritage committee  I keep going back to this, but I really do think that there needs to be a relationship built with platforms and an accountability for the platforms. What's so shocking to me is really just how accessible this technology is. As long as it remains that accessible, it's inevitable that there will be more people harmed.

Canadian Heritage committee  We're not AI programmers, but I think it's definitely possible to have that, and I think that's one of the reasons that public regulatory bodies ought to work with platforms. They would understand how these systems work and how they could be used to help regulate content. Platforms already do content moderation, any of the major tech platforms like YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the role of a public regulatory body is necessary. To leave it up to individuals to police their own content or to constantly be on the search for, or vigilant about, their own likeness being used on the web is an unrealistic expectation. For individuals to have to maintain their own protection in that way, I think it underestimates the level of accessibility and widespread use of the technology and how difficult this is.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the deepfakes of Taylor Swift are what prompted a lot of these conversations in recent months. I think it has actually brought this conversation more into the light. I would also add, though, that Taylor Swift has many more resources than the average individual to combat this and to respond to issues, but it does show the difficulty of banning the technology and preventing its reusage and the reharming of future individuals.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's very kind. I just going to add that you have to see that this technology exists within a societal context of gender-based violence and oppression. Education and combatting that societal, cultural context is part of the solution. It's not going to fix the technology, but educating in schools to understand the harms so that teenage boys who have access to technology know why it's so harmful is part of the solution.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's possible. Certainly, once the technology became open source, it's been impossible to completely remove the technology and the capacity to create deepfakes from the Internet, that's for sure. It could be less accessible. I think decreasing the accessibility would decrease the frequency of these types of attacks.

Canadian Heritage committee  I was just going to add that I think the Criminal Code provisions that currently exist and apply to actual real recordings of intimate images, or so-called revenge porn, are an incomplete remedy as is. That's not even including the issue of deepfakes and how much more complicated it is to apply there.

Canadian Heritage committee  Our position is similar to what was discussed. The Criminal Code provision would need to be amended if it were to apply to altered images and deepfakes, in our interpretation. While that's important, it's not going to provide a remedy in many cases, in part because deepfakes are so easy to produce anonymously that the person who produced them, in many cases, won't be identifiable.

Canadian Heritage committee  To effectively address this issue, it's crucial to understand how existing laws can be extended to cover deepfakes, but also why current regulatory frameworks are insufficient. First, Canadian legislation prescribing the non-consensual distribution of pornography, such as section 162.1 of the Criminal Code, should be reviewed and extended to include altered images such as deepfakes.