Hong Kong may widen laws to cover use of AI in sex crimes, security chief says
Law Reform Commission to look into whether use of AI to generate sexually explicit images should be included in changes to Crimes Ordinance
Hong Kong may introduce laws to cover the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in sex crimes as part of an effort by the administration to amend the ordinance covering sexual offences by the end of its term, the security chief has said.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung also revealed on Monday that the amendments would be based on principles of not distinguishing sexual offences based on sex or sexual orientation.
Tang said the Law Reform Commission, tasked with recommending changes to the Crimes Ordinance, would look into computer-related crimes and whether the use of AI to generate sexually explicit images should be included.
He was responding to a media question over whether the amendments would cover incidents such as the recent case of a student from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) using AI tools to create pornographic images of female classmates.
“If an act is deemed unacceptable by society and cannot be dealt with by current laws, then we must improve the law to deal with it, no matter what statute we use,” Tang said.
The HKU incident came to light in July when a friend of the law student discovered a folder containing 700 images, including generated pornographic images of 20 to 30 women, on his personal laptop.