AI “nude” deepfakes, a startling acquittal, and the law Canada just changed
By George Lee · Barrister & Solicitor, George Lee Law
Picture a backyard the summer before high school graduation. A young woman — the courts call her only by her initials, because a publication ban protects her — stands with three friends for a photo. Everyone is fully clothed. It is an ordinary picture of an ordinary evening.
Years later, she learns that a former classmate pulled that photo off social media, fed it through artificial-intelligence software, and produced a nude image of her. Then he shared it. He did the same to several other young women. And when the case reached a Nova Scotia courtroom in 2026, the judge — who had heard him admit, in an agreed statement of facts, exactly what he had done — had to acquit him on the charge of distributing an intimate image.
Not because there was any doubt about what happened. Because the words Parliament wrote in 2014 did not quite reach what the technology of 2024 had made possible. That gap is the whole story — and, as of this month, it is a gap that is closing.
The assumption almost everyone makes
Ask anyone on the street: if a stranger makes a fake naked picture of you and spreads it online, surely that is a crime? It is your face. It is humiliating. It is plainly wrong. Of course the law covers it.
Most people assume the non-consensual intimate image offence — section 162.1 of the Criminal Code, added in 2014 after the deaths of Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd — simply applies. It was easy to assume the same, until recently. And that is the trap. Criminal law does not run on outrage. It runs on the precise words Parliament chose. When the harm is obvious, we expect the statute to reach it. Sometimes it does not.
What the Criminal Code actually said
Until this summer, section 162.1 defined an intimate image as a visual recording of a person — a person who was actually nude, actually exposed, or actually engaged in sexual activity, in circumstances carrying a reasonable expectation of privacy. The quiet, decisive word was recording.
A deepfake nude is not a recording of anyone’s body. The face is real; the body is invented. The person was never undressed in front of any camera. So the synthetic image — however convincing, however degrading — fell outside the definition. This was not a clever loophole a defence lawyer dreamed up. It was a court doing exactly what courts are supposed to do: refusing to stretch a criminal offence past the meaning of its words, and leaving it to Parliament to widen the law if Parliament chooses.
The case: he admitted everything, and still walked on the main charge
R v MSK, 2026 NSPC 12, laid the problem bare. On the agreed facts, the accused took ordinary, clothed photos of several classmates from social media, used AI software to render them nude, and distributed the results — in some instances back to the complainants themselves — between November 2023 and February 2024. There were five complainants. He pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and to sending obscene material. The single live question was narrow: did the AI images meet the legal definition of an intimate image?
Here is the first twist. The judge accepted that what he did was a serious intrusion on the complainants’ privacy and sexual integrity. And still acquitted on that count. To convict, the court said, would mean force-feeding a brand-new technology into legislation built for something else — a patchwork assembly the words could not bear. Expanding the offence to capture AI-generated bodies was Parliament’s job, not the bench’s.
The second twist: he did not walk free. He was convicted of the other offences. The acquittal touched one charge only. But the symbolism was enormous, because it said out loud that the very tool victims reach for first did not fit the harm that is now spreading fastest.
The twist British Columbia readers should know
Here is what most of the national coverage missed. A victim in British Columbia would already have had a civil route available — even before Ottawa acted.
BC’s Intimate Images Protection Act, in force since January 2024, expressly covers fake, altered, and AI-generated images — deepfakes included. The image does not even have to show your face or be identifiable as you. You can apply online to the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) to have images taken down and de-indexed, and to claim damages. As of March 18, 2026, the CRT damages ceiling rose to $75,000 (with up to $35,000 in Provincial Court and no cap in the Supreme Court of BC). A credible threat to share is enough; you need not wait until the image has already spread. And there is a free provincial support service behind it.
While a criminal court in Nova Scotia could not reach the conduct, BC’s civil tribunal already could — and still can today.
What Ottawa just changed — and what it didn’t
The federal fix is Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act. Introduced in December 2025, amended in committee in May 2026 to capture not only fully nude but “nearly nude” images and to name AI software directly, it received Royal Assent on June 18, 2026. Most of its provisions — including the intimate-image amendments — come into force on July 18, 2026, the 30th day after Royal Assent.
The amended definition now reaches a visual representation — made by any electronic or mechanical means, including artificial-intelligence software — that depicts an identifiable person and is likely to be mistaken for a real recording of them. The Act also raises the maximum penalty for distribution from five years to ten, and, importantly, makes it an offence to threaten to share an intimate image even where nothing is ever actually shared.
Two honest caveats. First, the new law targets distribution and threats; as enacted, it does not on its own criminalize the mere creation of a deepfake of an adult — the position is different for minors, as I note below. The young woman from the Nova Scotia case is publicly pressing for creation to be captured too, and Justice officials say they are weighing it against freedom-of-expression concerns. Second, whether the new wording reaches a purely synthetic image — a likeness conjured from nothing rather than altered from a real photo — is a genuine open question that the courts will eventually have to answer.
What to do if this happens to you
If you are targeted in British Columbia, you have two tracks — and they are not either/or.
- The civil track, available right now. Apply to the Civil Resolution Tribunal under the Intimate Images Protection Act. It can order takedown, de-indexing, and damages, it covers deepfakes expressly, you do not need a lawyer to begin, and you do not need the image to have already circulated — a credible threat is enough. Start at takebackyourimages.gov.bc.ca.
- The criminal track. Report to police. Once C-16 is in force, distributing AI intimate images, and threatening to distribute them, are offences. And note a point that long predates C-16: if the person depicted is under 18, the child-pornography provisions of the Criminal Code already apply to fake and altered images. That route was never caught by the deepfake gap.
Whichever track you choose, preserve the evidence even though it is the last thing you want to look at — screenshots, web addresses, dates, usernames. Tighten the “who can use my image in AI” settings on your platforms. And if you are a parent, have the uncomfortable conversation: a teenager who makes or shares a deepfake nude of a classmate faces real criminal exposure — including under child-pornography law if the target is a minor.
A final word
The law arrived too late for the young woman whose backyard photo started this story. But it did not arrive because her harm was finally taken seriously — it was always serious. It arrived because cases like hers made the gap impossible to ignore.
If you are facing this — as someone targeted, or as a worried parent — you do not have to wait for the criminal process to grind forward before you act. In British Columbia, the civil tools are live today. Our office can help you navigate the tribunal route, coordinate it with a police complaint, and protect your privacy through the process; where criminal defence is needed, we will point you to the right counsel. You are not powerless, and you are not alone.
George Lee Law / 李广田律师事务所 — 604-681-1611 · retinaretrip.cfd · [email protected]
Disclaimer
This article is general information, not legal advice, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship. The law in this area is moving quickly. Bill C-16 (the Protecting Victims Act) received Royal Assent on June 18, 2026; most provisions, including the intimate-image amendments, come into force on July 18, 2026, the 30th day after Royal Assent (a few measures, such as those on coercive control and the Mandatory Reporting Act, are phased in later). Confirm the current consolidated Criminal Code text before relying on it. R v MSK, 2026 NSPC 12 is a Nova Scotia Provincial Court decision and may be subject to appeal; it interprets the federal Criminal Code and is persuasive, not binding, in BC. Statutory provisions, damage ceilings, and tribunal procedures change — verify the current text and status, and obtain advice on your specific situation before acting.