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Law / Australia

Using a Carriage Service to Transmit Sexual Material Without Consent (Deepfake Offences)

Criminal Code Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Act 2024 (Cth) No. 78, 2024, inserting ss. 474.17A, 474.17AA into the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), No. 12, 1995

In force since .

An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.

Enforcement body
Australian Federal Police, prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions
Obligation class
Prohibition
Audit expectation
none
Setting the rule reaches
General

What it requires

  • Do not use a carriage service to transmit material that depicts, or appears to depict, a person aged 18 or over in a sexual pose or sexual activity, or their sexual organ, anal region, or, for a female, breasts, without that person's consent, knowing of the lack of consent or reckless as to it.
  • It is no defense that the material was unaltered, or that it was created or altered using technology, including artificial intelligence, to produce a realistic but false depiction of the person; a deepfake is covered on the same terms as an authentic recording.
  • If you were responsible for creating or altering the non-consensual material yourself, or if you have 3 or more prior civil penalty orders for failing to comply with an Online Safety Act 2021 removal notice, you face a higher maximum penalty than a person who merely transmits such material.

These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.

In the frameworks

NIST AI RMF
  • MAP 3.3Targeted application scope is specified and documented based on the system’s capability, established context, and AI system categorization.
NIST AI 600-1
MIT mitigations Draft
  • 1.5Safety Decision Frameworks
  • 3.3Access Management
NIST Privacy Framework
  • CT.PO-P1Policies, processes, and procedures for authorizing data processing (e.g., organizational decisions, individual consent), revoking authorizations, and maintaining authorizations are established and in place.
FINOS AIGF
ETSI EN 304 223
  • 5.1.2-1Business need and security risks written down and assessed before deciding to build an AI system.
  • 5.1.4-5End-users told which uses of the system are prohibited.

Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law

Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.

If you get it wrong

Criminal exposureYes

Private right of actionNo

Criminal exposure note

Under s. 474.17A(1), the base offence of transmitting sexual material of another person without consent carries a maximum of 6 years imprisonment. Under s. 474.17AA(1), the offence is aggravated to a maximum of 7 years imprisonment where the person had 3 or more prior civil penalty orders made against them under the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014 for contravening the Online Safety Act 2021's removal-notice provisions. Under s. 474.17AA(5), a maximum of 7 years imprisonment also applies where the person was responsible for creating or altering the non-consensual material itself, regardless of who transmitted it.

What it makes you log

Logging duty

Sections 474.17A and 474.17AA define the offence, its consent, knowledge and recklessness elements, and its penalties; neither section, nor the double jeopardy and alternative-verdict provisions in section 474.17AB, states anything about logging, record-keeping, or an audit trail.

Kind
None
As of

What this law does

Drafted with AI

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page. How this site is made

Research summary

Legal information, not legal advice. This is LexLint's own research summary of a public legal source, and it creates no attorney-client relationship. For decisions that matter, consult qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. About LexLint

This Act inserted sections 474.17A and 474.17AA into the Criminal Code Act 1995, making it an offence to use a carriage service to transmit material depicting, or appearing to depict, a person aged 18 or over in a sexual pose or activity, or their sexual organ, anal region, or, for a female, breasts, without their consent, where the person transmitting it knows of the lack of consent or is reckless as to it.

It is irrelevant whether the transmitted material is unaltered or has been created or altered using technology, including artificial intelligence, to generate a realistic but false depiction of the person, the kind of material commonly called a deepfake.

The base offence carries a maximum of 6 years imprisonment; a person who transmits such material after 3 or more prior civil penalty orders for non-compliance with an Online Safety Act 2021 removal notice, or who was responsible for creating or altering the material themselves, faces an aggravated offence carrying a maximum of 7 years imprisonment.

When LexLint raises it

When your app profile says your app generates images with AI, generates video with AI or publishes adult content.

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