Sydney schoolgirls reportedly targeted with deepfake images circulated online
ABC News reports that digitally altered sexual images using the faces of girls from a Sydney high school circulated online. Families went to police, who confirmed an investigation, while the school and education department said they were working with police. A follow-up report says the eSafety Commissioner was also in talks with investigators. The school is not identified, and the number of affected students, creation date and later inquiry outcome are unknown.
- AI system
- Unidentified image tool
- Unknown
- Occurred
- Event date unknown
- Reported
- 16 October 2025
- Event location
- Australia
- What the AI did
- Depicted or impersonated the person
- Reported harm
- Exploitation or Abuse
- Whose AI use
- Someone else’s AI use
- Setting
- Education · Privacy
- Evidence
- AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
- 3 claims: 3 reported. 2 open questions
- People reported harmed
- Not reliably quantifiable from the sources
AI system as recorded: Reported deepfake image-generation tools
What Happened
ABC News reports that digitally altered sexual images using the faces of girls from a Sydney high school circulated online. Families went to police, who confirmed an investigation, while the school and education department said they were working with police. A follow-up report says the eSafety Commissioner was also in talks with investigators. The school is not identified, and the number of affected students, creation date and later inquiry outcome are unknown.
Reported harm
The reports describe nonconsensual sexual depictions of schoolgirls circulated online and families seeking police help. No separate clinical or educational outcome is attributed to these particular students.
What remains unknown
- The first creation date, generation method and number of affected students are unknown.
- The identities of creators and any investigation or disciplinary outcome remain unknown.
What the evidence supports
AI involvement: reported. ABC describes the case as deepfake image-based abuse and reports the eSafety Commissioner's involvement. The reviewers have not inspected the images, tools or a forensic determination.
3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean
Reported ABC reports that digitally altered sexual images using female students' faces circulated online at a Sydney high school.
Causal attribution. Two ABC reports on one school investigation. Police and commissioner statements remain reported. General statistics or experiences at other schools do not establish this case's individual impacts.
- abc.net.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
Article body, retained text line 99: paragraph about digitally altered images.
Reported Families reportedly went to police and NSW Police confirmed an investigation was underway.
Causal attribution. Two ABC reports on one school investigation. Police and commissioner statements remain reported. General statistics or experiences at other schools do not establish this case's individual impacts.
- abc.net.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
Article body, retained text line 93: paragraph about police complaint and investigation.
- abc.net.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
Article body, retained text line 101: paragraph about police complaint and investigation.
Reported The follow-up says the eSafety Commissioner's investigators were in talks with police and the education department about the digitally altered images.
Causal attribution. Two ABC reports on one school investigation. Police and commissioner statements remain reported. General statistics or experiences at other schools do not establish this case's individual impacts.
- abc.net.au(opens in new tab) supports · English
Article body, retained text line 99: paragraph about eSafety involvement.
Sources
2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.
- ABC News, 16 October 2025, police inquiry into Sydney school deepfake images(opens in new tab)
s1 · abc.net.au · Journalistic · English · Inspected · 16 October 2025 · Shares an underlying account with another listed source · Primary
- journalistic supporting source(opens in new tab)
s2 · abc.net.au · Journalistic · English · Inspected · Shares an underlying account with another listed source
How the sources were read, and where the events happened
Event countries: Australia. Affected-person countries: Australia. Court countries: Unknown.
Both reports explicitly locate the affected students at a Sydney high school. The school's name is withheld.
Reviewed for publication 2026-09-30: Inspected local reporting describes a concrete school image-abuse event and case-specific official responses. Students and school are not named. The record remains undated and does not borrow distress claims from other schools or general statistics.
People reported harmed in this case
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources
The sources refer to female students and several families without a reliable numeric count. Zero is an unknown-count placeholder and does not mean no one was harmed.
Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.
Cite this case
Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.
APA
NOPE. (2026). Sydney schoolgirls reportedly targeted with deepfake images circulated online. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-sydney-school-reported-deepfake-images-police-inquiry
BibTeX
@misc{2025_sydney_school_reported_deepfake_images_police_inquiry,
title = {Sydney schoolgirls reportedly targeted with deepfake images circulated online},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-sydney-school-reported-deepfake-images-police-inquiry}
} Related cases
Female students at a Sydney high school reportedly depicted in AI-generated sexual images circulated online
On 9 January 2025 outlets reported that NSW Police had begun an investigation on 6 January after a report that inappropriate images were being produced and distributed online. The Guardian reported the allegation that a student at a Sydney high school used AI platforms to create explicit deepfake images of female students and circulated them through fake social media accounts. The Department of Education said it was helping affected students with wellbeing support and referred the matter to the eSafety Commissioner. The creation date, the AI tool, the number of affected students and the outcome of the investigation are not reported.
Female students at a Victorian secondary school reportedly depicted in AI-generated sexual images circulated online
In a report published on 21 February 2025 about a Victoria Police press conference, an Australian regional outlet stated that sexually explicit AI-manipulated images of teenage girls had been circulated online and that two Year 11 students had been suspended. Police were quoted saying the images allegedly involved formal photos of female students. Police were still working to establish how many students were victims. The Department of Education said wellbeing support had been offered to students who needed it. The creation date, the AI tool, the number of affected students and the outcome of the investigation are not reported in the cited source.
Queensland school teacher charged over alleged AI-generated explicit images of staff and students
ABC reported on 23 and 24 July 2026 that police in Queensland, Australia charged a former secondary school teacher at a school there with child exploitation and computer misuse offences. Police allege the teacher used AI software on a work-issued laptop to generate explicit images depicting staff members and students. Police say a nine-month investigation began in October after they were notified of the material, and the school says it dismissed the teacher in October 2025, notified police and regulators, and that there is no evidence the material was shared. The number of people depicted and the creation date are not stated.
Girls at a Tasmanian school reportedly depicted in AI-generated sexual images shared in a boys' group chat
Police in Tasmania received a report about alleged illegal online activity involving a group of students at a school in the south of the state, and on 19 March 2026 a local outlet reported that the incident may have involved AI-generated content. On 29 April 2026 the ABC reported, citing Tasmania Police, that girls at the school had their likenesses used to make AI-generated sexual images. Two parents told the ABC that police said 21 girls had been identified as victims, that the AI-altered photos were shared in a boys' group chat and that the images appeared to have been taken from social media. Five boys are alleged to have created the images and have left the school. Tasmania Police said no charges were laid and the five youths were dealt with under the Youth Justice Act. The parents said their daughters felt isolated and unsupported, and the school principal denied that families were advised to withhold information from their children. The creation date and the AI tool are not reported.
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