At least 46 MEPs – one in six – and four MEPs have appeared on deepfake porn images generated by artificial intelligence without their consent, an investigation is underway today in the European Parliament.
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05/10/2026
by
Lusa
O study, conducted by the german platform Now Digitale Transformation and led by researcher Benjamin Shultz, examined 200 areas known for hosting deepfake pornography and, searching the names of all MEPs, found 50 cases, 46 of them involving women, from seven of the eight groups in the European Parliament.
Among the 50 cases, there are material that can be accessed directly or that links the names of MEPs to “nudism applications”, but also indexed content of pages removed from the air by courts.
The document does not appoint any of the affected MEPs, but some, such as Lena Schilling of the German Greens, have decided to make their experiences public.
“ I'm so outraged that I need to talk about this. Imagine getting to work one day, opening the laptop and finding out that there are pictures of you, naked, ‘online’, photographs you never took. That's what happened to me and a lot of other women. It’s a horrible feeling,” Schilling said at a press conference.
In another report, Agora Digitale Transformation also explored the impact of deepfake pornography on members of European national parliaments and found 147 cases, 138 of them involving women.
Both the MEP and the report point to the intimidating effect that the existence of these images may have on young women in public life, with about 22% of policies considering leaving their positions after suffering digital violence, according to the organisation for the defence of Hate Aid human rights.
“ Sexualised ‘deepfakes’ are not so much a new technological phenomenon as a new tool for an old problem: violence against women. The trends of our analysis have the same misogynistic roots of harassment and ‘bullying’ offline, he says.
Researchers warn that, although artificial genetic intelligence has not created this phenomenon, it has made its production cheaper and faster and much harder to detect.
The report underlines that European legislation on the so-called ‘deepfake’ pornography is insufficient to protect victims, since it only acts after the damage has already happened and depends on the victims themselves finding the content and reporting it.
In addition, it points out that most legal obligations “applies only to large online platforms, while most of the damage occurs on small and often offshore websites.”.
Victims and researchers are focused on December 2, the deadline for platforms to adapt to the latest changes to the artificial intelligence law, which prohibits AI systems that generate child sexual abuse material or create content that shows the intimate parts of an identifiable person, or sexually explicit activities, without their consent.
“There can be no gaps or delays,” Schilling emphasized.