First Deepfake Guilty Plea Puts Australia's AI Laws To The Test But Beyond The Criminal Courts, Victims Have Few Options

A 19-year-old Adelaide man has become the first person in Australia to plead guilty under Commonwealth laws criminalising deepfake pornography.

William Hamish Yeates admitted two counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent and two counts of using a carriage service in a harassing or offensive way in the Adelaide Magistrates Court.

According to court documents, Yeates "transmitted material" on the social media platform X depicting intimate images of his victim without her consent between September 2024 and February 2025.

He had originally faced 20 charges, but the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions withdrew the balance following negotiations.

Magistrate Justin Wickens remanded Yeates to the District Court for sentencing in May.

WHAT IS A DEEPFAKE?

A deepfake is an image, video or audio recording generated or altered using artificial intelligence to create a realistic but fabricated depiction of a real person.

It is the non-consensual creation or sharing of intimate deepfakes as a form of image-based abuse.

These fabrications can depict real people in sexually explicit situations that never took place, and are used for purposes ranging from sexual gratification and peer-to-peer harassment to coercive control within relationships, posting on pornography sites without the victim's knowledge, and the production of child sexual abuse material.

The technology has become dramatically more accessible, with AI tools and apps now capable of producing convincing imagery in seconds.

Many victims do not even know the material exists until long after it has spread.

DEEPFAKE LAWS BEEFED UP

The federal offence of transmitting non-consensual material carries a maximum penalty of six years' imprisonment (seven years for the aggravated offence of creating or altering the material).

The guilty plea is the first test of the Criminal Code Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Act 2024 (Cth) which Parliament fast-tracked last year as AI-generated intimate imagery increased online.

Every state and territory now has some form of intimate image abuse legislation on the books, and most have moved to ensure those laws capture AI-generated content.

WHY IS IT SO SERIOUS?

If you are about to create, share or even experiment with this kind of material, stop. It does not matter if you think it is harmless graphic design or a bit of fun, using someone's likeness without their consent is abuse and illegal.

It may be tempting to dismiss a deepfake as frivolous or a prank - it is neither and extremely serious.

What might seem like a joke to the person behind the screen can be devastating for the person whose image is distorted.  

The creation and distribution of fabricated intimate imagery is cyber-bullying and a form of abuse that can follow victims for years, damaging careers, relationships and impacting mental health.

CIVIL REMEDIES

Offenders facing jail time may not repair the long-term damage and reputational harm caused to the victim.

Legal proceedings can be lengthy.  A criminal prosecution is brought by the state, but if a victim wants to personally pursue the person responsible for compensation, an injunction or a takedown order, they must bring their own civil claim – this being one individual against another at their own cost.

While a criminal conviction requires proof beyond reasonable doubt, civil claims operate on the balance of probabilities which is a lower threshold, but one that still demands evidence, identification of the wrongdoer and a cause of action, none of which are straightforward in the world of deepfakes.

A person whose fabricated intimate images have circulated online faces real and lasting harm to their reputation, mental health, personal and professional life.

Under civil law, there are options but it is best to talk to specialised lawyers in the following areas:

DEFAMATION

Under the including the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW), the elements are publication, identification, defamatory meaning and serious harm.

A deepfake shared on social media may satisfy all three, but pursuing a claim means first finding out who made the images.

Deepfake creators hardly attach their names to the work and while courts can compel platforms to hand over user details, that process is costly, time-consuming and largely useless when those responsible are cloaked in a veil of secrecy or unable to be tracked down.

The Australian Consumer Law is no help unless the deepfake was used in trade or commerce - ruling out the vast majority of cases involving private individuals.

A new statutory privacy tort came into effect last year, but its application to deepfakes remains largely untested.

COPYRIGHT LAWS

Perhaps the most striking weakness is in intellectual property.

Australian copyright law simply does not recognise a person's face or voice as something that can be owned or protected.

If you own the copyright in a photograph of yourself, you can stop someone copying it but you cannot stop someone feeding your likeness into an AI model and generating something new.

Denmark spotted this gap and has proposed amendments to its Copyright Act that would grant individuals an enforceable right over their own likeness, but Australia still remains behind.

WHAT NOW?

The Yeates prosecution proves criminal law can work but until the civil side catches up, victims are left to cobble together remedies from laws that were never designed specifically for AI-generated forgeries.

Anyone who discovers they have been depicted in deepfake content should immediately capture the material, screenshot and report it to the eSafety Commissioner (who has civil powers under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) to issue removal notices for intimate images, including AI-generated content), and seek legal advice without delay, and get help if suffering mentally or emotionally.

The content in this Article is intended only to provide a summary and general overview on matters of interest. It is not intended to be comprehensive nor does it constitute legal advice. It should not be relied upon as such. You should seek legal or other professional advice before acting or relying on any of the content.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Naomi Shivaraman  has been an award winning journalist and producer for 25 years. She joined BlackBay as the team’s Legal Affairs Strategist, a role created to utilise her combined legal and media strategy skills, helping clients and stakeholders navigate the court of public opinion.

Not only does she assist the team in a paralegal capacity on complex litigation matters, but she also provides reputational, media and communications counsel. For the past few years, Naomi has combined her law studies with a full-time career. Naomi will finish her Bachelor of Laws degree at Macquarie University next year.