Recent progress in video technology has had some alarming effects in South Korea, as a growing number of tech-savvy youngsters are using deepfake technology to produce sexual images of people without their consent, often of their peers.

A recent report showed that there had been 180 criminal cases related to deepfake images last year. Ninety-one of the 120 people punished in those crimes were teenagers, according to a report compiled by Rep. Cho Eun-hee of the ruling People Power Party, which used data provided by the National Police Agency.

The number of deepfake-related crimes has been trending upward since 156 in 2022, as has the percentage of teens among those punished for those crimes. In 2022, 61 percent of convictions were of teens, rising to 75.8 percent in 2023.

"These digital sex crimes that inflict irreversible damage on the victims is spreading among teens, as if it was a game," Cho said, calling for a systematic revision to prevent such crimes.

Spreading of deepfake crime

On Wednesday, the Busan Metropolitan Office of Education said four middle school students were being investigated by police for using deepfake technology to digitally clone the faces of 18 students and two teachers. They made some 80 pornographic images of the victims, which they shared via mobile messenger apps.

There were 12 cases of students spreading pornographic deepfakes of fellow students in Busan last year, but there have been 15 cases in the first six months of this year alone.

On Jeju Island, police recently caught a teenage student at an international school making deepfake pornography using the faces of his fellow students. At least 11 students were found to be victimized by the crime.

Deepfake crimes can take various forms. Sometimes the images are used as a way to bully a victim, but other times they are created to make money. In 2022, a high school student was found guilty of selling pornographic content -- including doctored photos of real people -- to 110 people online, in exchange for gift certificates.

Officials of the state-run Sunflower Center, which provides counselling service for victims of sexual abuse, say sex crimes using deepfakes can take many forms. One official at the center told local media that while overwhelming majority of the cases involving male students victimizing female students, students of both genders have been reported victimizing other students of the same gender.

South Korean teens have easy access to artificial intelligence service. A survey of 2,261 teens published in May by the National Information Society Agency found that about 77.5 percent of the teenagers here said they knew about generative AI, and over half, 52.1 percent said they had actually used it.

Generative technology itself can be used to create all kinds of images, written content and music, and is a tool used across a number of industries. Very few of these tech-savvy Korean teens use it for illegal means, as indicated by the aforementioned NPA data.

But like any tool, it can be harmful in the wrong hands, and there has been growing concern over the harm that can be inflicted by abusing it.

Concern over wrongful use of AI tech

Despite an increasing number of teens being punished for using deepfake technology, very few of them get serious punishment. This is partly because minors are subject to more lenient punishment in general.

Adults who process or edit false video, audio, or photo content of another person in a form that cause sexual shame against the other person's will with intend to disseminate can be punished by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won ($37,000), according to article 14-1 of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes.

But the Hankyoreh newspaper recently reported that actual punishment is far more lenient than the law suggests. The paper's analysis on 46 court verdicts related to fake videos showed that out of the 18 indicted only for spreading fake videos -- excluding those who were charged with other crimes as well -- only one person received a prison term, with 15 escaping with a suspended term while two received a fine.

In one case, a young man who doctored a photo of his teenage cousin and shared it on a mobile messenger was initially sentenced to two years in jail, but an appellate court reduced the punishment to a suspended term. The court said in a verdict that the defendant was young, had no former criminal record, and his parents have pledged to lead him away from the crime.

The law also stipulates that the offender must have the purpose of dissemination, meaning punishing those who possess such deepfake pornography is in a legal grey area.

As such, criminal experts stress that the government should step up education on students to make sure they realize the severity of the crime.

Lee Soo-jung, a professor of criminal psychology at Kyunggi University, said in an interview with local media that lessons on computer technology such as coding must cover the legal and ethical aspects of technology. She stressed that such education must commence at a very young age, since the risk of mistaking such crimes as pranks runs higher with younger children.