Photos of naked teenagers: how AI generates a new form of school harassment in a college in Haute-Garonne

It's a situation these young teenagers hoped they would never face. A student, attending third grade at the Forain François-Verdier college in Léguevin (Haute-Garonne), would have distributed naked photomontages of around ten of his classmates. More precisely, he would have used an application, using artificial intelligence, to artificially strip photos of his classmates.

This is what we call “deepfake”. A recent trend in cyberharassment, still devastating for those who suffer it. The photos were discovered at the beginning of November, after the denunciation of a teenager who also attended school in Léguevin.

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To produce these montages, the author used a fairly simple technique. He allegedly collected the photos from the Instagram accounts of several girls, who all study in the same establishment. He then allegedly used an image generator on the Internet, allowing real faces to be copied onto false images of naked bodies.

“I immediately expressed my anger”

The young man would have taken care to send them in a private group on an encrypted messaging service. It was during this conversation that the distorted photos were discovered. “It seems that he bragged about it in the playground,” confides, ulcerated, the mother of one victim.

Horrified, the victims, young teenagers aged no more than 15, quickly told their parents. The first complaints were filed at the beginning of last week. One of the victims, alongside his mother, testifies: “I immediately expressed my anger against him”. However, the young girl wishes to “move forward” and forget this story, in anticipation of the patent examination which awaits her next year.

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National Education recalls that, together with parents, it has “a fundamental role to play in transmitting the values ​​linked to responsible use of the internet”. Léguevin's middle school students are made aware of “the importance of talking about problems encountered with adults, the protection of their private lives, but also the right to the image of their comrades”.

More than ten complaints filed

Faced with these perverse misappropriations, more than ten parents of students filed a complaint. The mother of a student concerned says she wants to “restore the image of [sa] girl”, soiled by the montages made without her knowledge.

What specific tool did the schoolboy use to tamper with the images? Why did he post them to an online group chat? Did he want to sell them? Many questions remain unanswered in this matter. An investigation is underway.

For his part, the student suspected of having generated these deepfakes “has no longer shown up in class since last week,” says a source close to the matter.