Almendralejo, a quiet town in the south of Spain, is in a state of shock after learning that AI-generated nude images of underage girls from the area have been circulating on social media without their knowledge, News.ro reports citing a BBC report.

The images were created using photos of the target girls in which they appeared fully clothed, many of which were taken from their own social media accounts. The photos were then processed with an application that generates an imaginary pose of a person without clothes.

So far, almost 30 girls aged between 11 and 17 from Almendralejo or nearby have accused themselves of being victims of the app.

“One day my daughter came out of school and said to me, ‘Mom, there are pictures of me topless,'” said Maria Blanco Rayo, the 14-year-old’s mother. “I asked her if she had taken any nude photos and she said, ‘No, mom, there are fake photos of girls making a lot now, and there are other girls in my class who have had this happen to them.’ , – said the woman. She says the parents of the 28 affected girls in the city have formed a support group.

Police are currently investigating and at least 11 local boys have reportedly been identified as being involved in creating the images or sharing them via WhatsApp and Telegram. Investigators are also investigating claims that one of the girls was tried to be blackmailed by using a fake photo of her.

The impact that the dissemination of these images has had on the affected girls varies. Blanco Rayo says her daughter is doing well, but the other girls “don’t even want to leave the house.”

A female doctor used her celebrity to publicize the case

Almendralejo is a picturesque town of just over 30,000 inhabitants, known for its olive and red wine production, in the southwestern province of Badajoz. But he was not used to the sudden attention the case, which made the city’s national headlines, attracted, the BBC said. This is largely due to the efforts of the mother of one of the girls, Miriam Al Adib. She is a gynecologist and used her already famous social media profile to put this issue at the center of the Spanish public debate.

Although many of the AI-edited images were likely created over the summer, the case only came to light in recent days after Dr Adib released a video reassuring the affected girls and their parents.

“I didn’t know how many children were in the images, whether they had been uploaded to pornographic websites — I had all these fears,” she says. “When you’re a victim of a crime, if you’ve been robbed, for example, you file a complaint and you don’t hide because another person has hurt you. But during sexual crimes, the victim often feels ashamed and hides, feels responsible. That’s why I wanted to convey this message: it’s not your fault,” the doctor wrote.

Legislative loopholes

The suspects in this case are between 12 and 14 years old. Spanish law does not cover the creation of images of a sexual nature involving adults, although the creation of such material with the help of minors may be considered child pornography.

Another possible charge would be violating privacy laws.

In Spain, minors can be prosecuted only from the age of 14 and older.

The case caused concern even among uninvolved local residents. “Those of us with children are very worried,” said Gemma Lorenzo, a local resident who has a 16-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. “You worry about two things: if you have a son, you’re afraid that he might do something like this, and if you have a daughter, you worry even more because it’s an act of violence,” the woman said. admits

Francisco Javier Guerra, a local artist and decorator, says the parents of the boys involved are to blame. “They should have done something earlier, like take their phones or install an app that tells them what their kids are doing with their phones,” he says.

This is not the first time such a case has made headlines in Spain. At the beginning of this year, social networks published pictures of topless singer Rosalia generated with the help of artificial intelligence.

“Women from all over the world have written to me explaining that this has happened to them and that they don’t know what to do,” says Dr. Miriam Al Adib. “Now this is happening all over the world. The only difference is that in Almendralejo we made a fuss about it,” she added.

Worryingly, programs like the one used in Almendralejo are becoming more common.

Javier Izquierdo, head of the child protection unit of the national police’s cybercrime unit, told Spanish media that this type of crime is no longer limited to “that guy who downloads child pornography from the dark web or from some forum hidden on the Internet.” He added: “Obviously it’s still happening, but now the new challenges we’re facing is access by minors at such a young age (to such technology) as in this case,” the official said.