Taiwan court sentences band photographer who used AI face swapping to put at least five female musicians into false sexual images
Taiwan's High Court on 29 October 2026 sentenced a photographer from Taipei's band scene to 11 months in prison, suspended for four years, for using AI deepfake face swapping to turn performance and publicity photos of female musicians into false sexual images that were posted on an X account, according to ETtoday. Prosecutors said that from 2024 he took at least five women's photos from Facebook and Instagram and used an AI synthesis function in Telegram to paste their faces onto nude and sexual images, which a co-defendant posted for public viewing; the women found their faces on the account and reported it to police. In a first-instance ruling reported on 1 June 2026, the Shilin District Court had sentenced him to one year, suspended, for illegally using personal data; the appeal court, also finding three counts, set 11 months, again suspended and with a NT$200,000 payment to the treasury. He admitted the acts and settled with one of the five women. One of them said publicly that she had been harassed with deepfake nude images and that people had been urged to sexually harass her for four years, and that the account disgusted her. The ruling can be appealed. The photographer and the women are not named here.
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources · Added 29/10/2026