Reported incidents of synthetic intimate images of school students, generated from ordinary photographs, have appeared in a number of countries. The tools required are widely available and require no technical skill.
This breaks a premise that most school guidance rests on: that the subject participated in the creation of an image, and that prevention therefore consists of persuading her not to.
Nothing about that framing applies here. The source material is an ordinary photograph — a school photograph, a team photograph, an image from a public account.
Why the existing guidance fails
Guidance built around the assumption of subject participation produces responses that are actively harmful when applied to synthetic images.
Conversations that begin by establishing what the subject did are irrelevant and read as accusatory.
Preventive messaging about not sharing images is not merely useless but misleading, because it implies a control the subject does not have.
Disciplinary frameworks designed around consensual image sharing between students do not fit an act which more closely resembles fabrication and distribution.
Schools that have handled these incidents well have generally been those that recognised early that the existing procedure did not apply.
The legal position, developing
Law is moving, unevenly.
Several jurisdictions have introduced or extended offences specifically covering synthetic intimate images, in some cases covering creation as well as distribution.
Where the subject is a minor, existing child sexual abuse material offences apply in most jurisdictions regardless of whether the image is synthetic, and these are serious offences carrying substantial penalties.
This is worth stating clearly to students, because there is a widespread belief among young people that synthetic images occupy a legal grey area or constitute a joke. In the case of images of minors, the position in most jurisdictions is close to the opposite of a grey area.
Anyone dealing with a specific incident needs jurisdiction-specific advice, as provisions differ substantially.
The harm question
A recurring response is that a synthetic image is not real and the harm is therefore lesser.
The research on victim impact does not support this. Studies of image-based abuse find comparable distress reported by subjects of synthetic and authentic images, and several plausible reasons why.
The image circulates whether or not it is authentic, and viewers cannot reliably distinguish. The subject cannot prove a negative to everyone who sees it. The distribution and the intent are identical. And the fact that it was fabricated adds a specific dimension — that someone chose to construct it — that some subjects describe as worse rather than better.
What schools should have in place
A procedure that does not begin with the subject's conduct. The first question is who created and distributed the image, not what the subject did.
Immediate removal action. Hash-matching services accept synthetic images and are the most effective removal route.
Evidence preservation before deletion. The instinct of everyone involved is to delete, which destroys the record.
Limits on retelling. Requiring a subject to recount events to successive members of staff is a well-documented secondary harm and is avoidable with a single designated contact.
Clear communication to the student body about the legal position. The belief that this is a prank is common and is the single most correctable factor.
Consideration of whether police involvement is warranted, which in cases involving minors it generally is.
What education should say
Not that students should reduce their photographic presence, which is both impractical and misallocates responsibility.
The content with actual utility is aimed at potential perpetrators and bystanders: that creating these images of a minor is a serious criminal offence in most jurisdictions, that distributing one is likewise, that possessing one is, and that forwarding a received image constitutes distribution.
That last point is the one that changes behaviour most, because the majority of people who spread such material are not its creators. They are people forwarding something, generally without any belief that they are committing an offence.
For a young woman affected
Document before deleting. Screenshots with usernames, timestamps and URLs.
Use a hash-matching removal service, which will accept synthetic material.
Report to the platform through the intimate image route rather than general reporting.
Report to police where the jurisdiction covers it, and particularly where the subject is a minor.
Contact a specialist service rather than a general helpline.
And it is worth saying plainly, because the framing of most existing guidance implies otherwise: there was no decision she made that caused this, and there is no configuration she could have applied that would have prevented it. The available photograph was an ordinary photograph. That is the whole point of what is different about this.