A Toronto woman is fighting to get stolen images of her taken down from social media — which she suspects were altered using deepfake technology.
Her story is far from isolated as Canadian laws work to catch up with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
She spoke to us under condition of anonymity.
“I choose not to show my face obviously because it does put a target on your back,” she said.
And she says she’s already been targeted enough — a discovery she made one Thursday morning three months ago when she received a follow request on her TikTok account.
“I saw that this person who was requesting to follow me had my photo as their profile picture. So of course I wanted to see what that was about. I clicked on it and I saw that the entire account was full of AI videos of me in lingerie doing sexual acts,” she said.
“They took my face, they put it on a body that’s clearly not mine and put it into lingerie and made videos of me grabbing my chest, opening my legs, just all that kind of stuff.”
She immediately contacted the user but got no response. She then reached out to TikTok and they responded claiming they would look into the issue — but that was three months ago.
“That profile is still up,” she said.
While fighting back tears, the woman who is studying law spoke about the emotional toll it has taken.
“I ended up skipping classes. I was scared that people would recognize me and think that it was me whenever I would go outside. I felt like no one was going to believe that it wasn’t me,” she said.
The woman also contacted Toronto Police and says they did connect her with a detective but there is little they can do.
“They said that Canadian law does not currently criminalize what’s happened,” she said.
According to the Toronto Police Service (TPS), the rapid growth of deepfake technology is creating challenges for law enforcement, particularly where the law hasn’t yet fully caught up with how this technology is being used.
The Canadian Criminal Code, specifically section 163.1, does include provisions addressing offences related to Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), including AI-generated material. This ensures that the exploitation of children through emerging technologies is captured within the existing legal framework.
“However, cases involving non-consensual deepfake imagery of adults highlight areas where current laws were not designed with this technology in mind,” said TPS spokesperson Stephanie Sayer.
Sayer said laws must evolve to ensure the legal system can adequately support law enforcement in addressing the complexities of modern, technology-driven crimes.
Last month, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada announced the introduction of Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act. Its aim is to criminalize sexual deepfakes which show the subject nude, exposing their sexual organs or engaged in explicit sexual activity.
“The government looks forward to working with Parliament to pass Bill C-16 as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice told CityNews. Sayer also added, if passed, these changes could help clarify investigative authorities and potential offences related to the creation and distribution of harmful deepfake material.
“As with any proposed legislation, its practical impact on police enforcement would depend on the final language adopted by Parliament, but it reflects broader efforts to ensure the law keeps pace with rapidly evolving technology,” Sayer said.
Canada has been down this road before. In 2024 the Liberals introduced the Online Harms Act which failed to pass.
The woman who spoke to CityNews says the legislation is long overdue.
“I could not understand how something like this, something that completely damages and ruins your reputation, can’t be illegal,” she said.
Speakers Corner reached out to TikTok and a spokesperson said they cannot comment on individual cases or what they’re doing to address the woman’s concerns, citing privacy issues.
She’s hopeful that by speaking out it adds more pressure to get the profile in question removed from the social media platform.
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