Deepfake porn scandal in Hong Kong exposes need to update laws

The deepfake scandal at the University of Hong Kong – hundreds of non-consensual, sexually explicit composites reportedly found on a student’s laptop – feels like a sequel to a much older story from 2008, when intimate photographs copied from actor Edison Chen’s computer were leaked on the internet. Then, the harm was privacy invasion: real images, created in private, thrust into public view. Now, the harm arrives through fabricated images: generated by artificial intelligence (AI) with enough likeness to stain reputations. The difference? Anyone today with a social media footprint can be targeted. The Edison Chen episode marked a turning point in our internet culture and gender discussion. Police pursued distributors of the stolen photos under computer misuse laws. Reflecting the gender double standards, the celebrity women victims bore the brunt of the fallout. Framed as a question of morality rather than theft, the women’s consent to having their photos taken in private was conflated with consent to their public display. Deepfakes invert that logic. When synthetic images leak, the knee-jerk dismissal is that they are not real. Yet their mere existence is enough to tar reputations. All it takes is a single selfie scraped from social media, which can be repurposed offline. Hong Kong’s legal architecture, including a privacy statute drafted in the 1990s, does not map perfectly onto this shift. Some argue that the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, designed for conventional data-processing models, may not neatly address hyperrealistic fabrications using machine-learning techniques, and that harvesting publicly available photos may not breach collection rules, with lack of distribution creating a legal grey zone. Hong Kong does not recognise a general right to control one’s likeness, and the traditional legal tools against harassment and defamation were developed for conduct predating AI. Therefore, harm-inflicting actions could escape sanction until they spill into distribution, by which time the damage is often irreparable. The city’s privacy watchdog has launched a criminal investigation into the deepfake case, but declined to comment further. Its ultimate stance will clarify whether pre‑distribution, creation or possession is covered by existing law and what remedies are available. Culture complicates enforcement and redress. Our dense social networks, tabloid-ready media and Confucian tradition-infused norms around “face” and reputation fuel the stigma. The women affected by the deepfakes have opted for anonymity in interviews, underscoring the persistent fear of stigma. In the deepfake era, the targets are less likely to be famous. The fear of secondary victimisation, whispers in lecture halls and offices, and social isolation deters many from filing complaints or pressing charges. The Edison Chen case began with a specific physical point of compromise – a repair shop – enabling a defined trail for investigators. By contrast, the sources of deepfakes are often obscured or untraceable in a sea of potential creators and platforms, especially before wider distribution. What should we take from the 2025 episode? Not another round of moralising, but a recognition that the law must meet technology where it is, and that dignity does not depend on whether a shutter ever clicked. Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, writing as lawyers in 1890 about snapshot cameras and tabloids, argued for a “right to be let alone” precisely because then-prevailing doctrines could not capture new modes of intrusion. This call feels relevant today. Deepfakes demand that our laws evolve. Hong Kong can update them to encompass the generative manipulation of identifiable likenesses; consider narrowly tailored offences for creating and possessing sexually explicit deepfakes, with carve-outs for satire, art and expressions in the public interest. We should build rapid, privacy-respecting pathways for removal and redress that do not trade victim anonymity for action. Universities, employers and professional bodies can deliver timely accountability and support independent of criminal outcomes, provided they adopt due process protections and trauma-informed protocols. Overbroad criminalisation and opaque takedown regimes can chill legitimate experimentation. But inaction enables abuse. Waiting for distribution before taking action is too late. The injury lies in the conscription of a person’s likeness, not solely in the number of views. Theorist and filmmaker Guy Debord wrote in 1967: “The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.” Synthetic avatars don’t just mediate our relations, they dissolve the very ground on which accountability once stood. Victims are left to argue not just about what happened, but whether anything happened at all. Hong Kong has navigated a privacy crisis before. It can survive this one by drawing on its legal heritage and refusing to let technological novelty outstrip our commitment to dignity. If the snapshot camera gave birth to modern privacy law, deepfakes should push us to redraw the boundary between private action and exploitation – so the next scandal, if it comes, finds a city better prepared to protect our freedom and safety.

Deepfake porn scandal in Hong Kong exposes need to update laws

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Not since the 2008 Edison Chen sex photo leak has the city faced such a crisis in privacy protection as laws struggle to keep up with AI

Not since the 2008 Edison Chen sex photo leak has the city faced such a crisis in privacy protection as laws struggle to keep up with AI