WEN HUI ATTORNEYS AT LAW
1/7/23
Deepfake, Untruthful Image, Personal Data Protection, Privacy
The Legislative Yuan passed a bill of addendum to the Criminal Code on January 7, 2023. The bill, Chapter 28-1 of the Criminal Code, is named “Interfering Sexual Privacy And Dissenting Fales Image”. This bill is purported to establish a protection network for sexual violence crime.
In 2021, the Internet celebrity "Xiaoyu" and his assistants used Deepfake technology to make pornographic images of hundreds of famous people's faces, spread them on the Internet, and sold them for profit. However, in the trial, they confessed frankly and tried to reconcile with the victims. In August 2022, "Xiaoyu" was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in prison for the total 119 violations of the Personal Data Protection Act. His assistants were sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in prison respectively. Their sentences can be substituted by payment of fines.
The prosecutor was dissatisfactory because the prosecutor viewed that the sentences was too light, and many victims refused to accept the results, so they appealed.The public view that the punishments under the Personal Data Protection Law is not appropriated as such sexual privacy offenses is of malicious nature and the damage to the victims is so sever and irreparable. Therefore, it is called to action and the bill of addendum is passed to impose more strict punishment on such offenses.
The key points of this bill of addendum are:
Recording sexual images of the others without their consent shall be sentenced to the maximum 3 years in prison. Disseminating the above-mentioned sexual images shall be sentenced to no less than 6 months but no more than to 5 years in prison. Disseminating with the intention of making profits shall be sentenced to not less than 9 months but no more than 7 years and 6 months in prison.
Recording record sexual images by means of violence and coercion shall be sentenced to the maximum 5 years in prison, disseminating the same shall be sentenced to 1-7 years in prison, disseminating with intention of making profits shall be sentenced to 1.5 to 10.5 years.
Disseminatingsexualimageswithoutthe consent of others shall be sentenced to the maximum 5 years in prison.
Making or distributing false images of