A Fight Against the Dissemination of Deepfakes in Other Countries: Criminal and Criminological Aspects

The authors analyze a relatively new phenomenon of spreading realistic audiovisual fake materials (deepfakes). This socially dangerous phenomenon is not reflected in the Russian criminal legislation as a separate offence. At the same time, some countries have started developing a criminal policy in this sphere. The methodology of the study presupposes a comparative law analysis of current legislations of the USA, China and the European union regarding the liability for the dissemination of realistic audiovisual fakes. The analysis of criminal legislation is aimed at the identification and systematization of key approaches to criminalizing the dissemination of realistic audiovisual fakes in the countries that are the leaders in digitizing their social and economic life. It showed that there are radically different approaches to regulating criminal liability for the actions under consideration. The authors analyzed criminal policy of the United States at the federal and state levels on the criminal law protection against infringements through deepfakes. They found that the first action to be recognized as criminal is the use of realistic audiovisual fakes for electoral intervention. The legislations of some states strictly regulate the procedure of posting such content before elections, the most serious violations leading to criminal liability. Besides, the United States recognizes as criminally punishable the use of deepfakes for creating materials of intimate nature and for identity theft. The People’s Republic of China establishes liability, including criminal liability, for posting any fake realistic-looking audiovisual materials without mentioning that they are fake. Currently there are no special criminal law norms regulating liability for the dissemination of deepfakes in the law of the European Union. This action should be viewed as infringement of the lawful use of personal data. The authors give their assessment of some criminological characteristics of the analyzed publicly dangerous phenomenon in Russia and in the world. In spite of the relative novelty of the deepfake technology, realistic fake videos are quite common. The society supports the necessity of criminalizing this publicly dangerous action.