Nagoya, Japan: a former elementary-school teacher was sentenced on 4 June 2026 to three and a half years, including for possessing generative-AI nude images made from school photos of two girls; reported as Japan's first conviction applying the child-pornography law to AI deepfakes

The case arose from a group of teachers who shared secretly filmed images of girls through a group chat. It came to light after the defendant, then a teacher at a Nagoya municipal elementary school, was arrested in March 2025 on a separate charge. Analysis of his smartphone revealed the group, and seven current and former teachers from five prefectures were arrested and charged (Yomiuri, Kyodo via Nikkei, Jiji).

On 5 December 2025, prosecutors added a charge of possessing child pornography under the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. According to the indictment summary reported by the Chunichi, on 10 March 2025 he possessed at home two nude images generated with AI image software from the faces of two girls. The Aichi prefectural police told the Yomiuri that he had sent photos of two pupils, stored at the school where he worked, to another person and had that person make nude images with generative AI. The Yomiuri and the police called it the first indictment in Japan treating a sexual deepfake as child pornography. Previously, applying the law had been considered difficult because court precedent assumed a real child. The police said they treated the images as child pornography partly because the girls could be identified from their faces.

On 4 June 2026 Judge Takaaki Matsumoto of the Nagoya District Court sentenced him to three years and six months (prosecutors had sought six). The sentence covered 15 offences, including voyeurism and other acts against pupils in his class, as well as the AI images (Bengoshi.com, citing the judgment summary). According to that summary, he supplied a photo of a girl taken in his class and elsewhere (then 8) to the group through Element, an app chosen for its secrecy. A member made the images on an AI image-editing site, and the defendant saved them on his phone. The Yomiuri reports that one of the two images was shared in the group chat. The judge said that although the bodies were drawn by AI, the faces and poses matched the original photos. He found the images realistic enough that an ordinary person could mistake them for photographs of the girl naked, and said they created a danger of the sexual images spreading and being misused. Jiji called the ruling the first case in Japan applying the law to possession of AI-generated sexual deepfakes, and Kyodo called it apparently the first such court finding.

The interpretation is contested. The lawyer Toru Okumura told Bengoshi.com that, under existing precedent, AI-drawn bodies added to images of clothed children are not child pornography, and he called for new legislation. In a September 2026 column, the former judge Kiichi Okaguchi argued that the court had stretched the law without explaining its reasoning.

Two girls were depicted apparently naked in AI-made images produced from their school photos, which a teacher at their school possessed; one was shared in a teachers' group chat (Yomiuri). The Nagoya District Court convicted him of possessing child pornography as part of a three-and-a-half-year sentence (Jiji, Kyodo via Nikkei, Yomiuri, Bengoshi.com citing the judgment summary). The girls' own experience is not reported.

March 2025: the teacher was arrested for pouring bodily fluid on a woman's rucksack at a station. Analysis of his seized smartphone revealed the teachers' group, and seven members from five prefectures were arrested and charged (Yomiuri, Kyodo). November 2025: Aichi police referred the AI-image possession to prosecutors. 5 December 2025: the Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office added a charge of possessing child pornography for the two AI images, reported as the first such indictment in Japan (Yomiuri, Chunichi). 28 April 2026: prosecutors sought six years and the defence a suspended sentence (Sankei). 4 June 2026: Judge Takaaki Matsumoto of the Nagoya District Court imposed three years and six months, saying a prison term was unavoidable even considering his expressions of remorse and settlements with some victims (TV Aichi). The judgment covers 15 offences (Bengoshi.com), and the defendant had admitted all charges (Kyodo). Whether the sentence was appealed or is final was not found.