Explicit ‘deepfake’ images of real people generated using artificial intelligence tools are among the most significant new threats facing women and girls in the Cayman Islands, detectives have told the Compass.
This new form of digital abuse involves merging existing pornographic content with the image of someone, without their consent.
Police confirmed the troubling global trend of deepfaking has reached Cayman, with at least one case currently under investigation.
The phenomenon has become a growing concern for law enforcement worldwide.
“We have got cases like that we’re investigating at the moment,” Detective Chief Inspector Lorraine Roberts confirmed in an interview with Compass TV.
Cayman has technology-focused legislation covering harassment, stalking and abuse, but officers acknowledge existing laws do not adequately reflect the full spectrum of offences now made possible by artificial intelligence and technical software.
“The legislation has got to catch up with emerging trends and technology such as AI,” Roberts said.
Massive growth of tech-enabled sex crimes
In the UK, police have warned of a rapid escalation in technology-assisted sexual crimes. A 2024 report found that deep-fake abuse is growing exponentially, with scores of apps and websites now dedicated to generating pornographic content using AI tools.
While much of the high-profile material has focused on women in the public eye, the report found the most common targets are ordinary women, with specific ‘nudify’ apps emerging to transform ordinary images into explicit content.
The report called on technology companies to take stronger action to prevent the spread of such material and urged the UK government to develop a national AI strategy that includes measures to curb abuse.
“AI is allowing this type of abuse to scale exponentially,” the report noted.
Royal Cayman Islands Police Service Sergeant Elizabeth Owens said this type of offence was often linked to extortion or blackmail.
“For those who are unfamiliar with the term digital abuse or deepfakes, they are pornographic images that are created by merging existing pornographic content with the image of an individual – usually who has not given consent. The resulting pornographic material is often violent,” said Owens.
She said there is also now widely available software that can take everyday images, without the consent of the individual, and use an extensive database of pornographic images to create a new nude image of that individual.
“These images are then used to coerce, extort and exploit, others by strangers, work colleagues, family members and partners.,” she said.
Survey finds permissive public attitude
A police-commissioned survey in the United Kingdom found that non-consensual sexual deepfakes have grown sharply in recent years and that many people do not view creating or sharing them as wrong, even when the person depicted has not consented.
The research suggested the content had increased in prevalence by nearly 1,800% between 2019 and 2024.
“Sharing intimate images of someone without their consent, whether they are real images or not, is deeply violating,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Claire Hammond of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection in the UK.
Mahreen Nabi, vice president of the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Grand Cayman, said the technology’s misuse was deeply concerning.
“There are video AI tools right now that can place a head into a video that never existed,” she said. “This all is in existence. It’s happening, and it’s creating a lot of problems.”
Karlene Bramwell, senior policy adviser on gender diversity and equality in the Gender Affairs Unit, said government was adapting its legal framework to meet evolving threats.
She pointed to the passage of the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act, expected to come into force next year, as an additional tool to address forms of online sexual harassment, including digital abuse.
While misuse of AI-generated images remains relatively rare and new in Cayman, police are relying on existing legislation to investigate such crimes.
Impact on victims
Deepfakes are widely regarded by academics as the future of violence against women online. Locally, there are concerns that the type of scenarios seen in the UK over the past few years are beginning to be seen in Cayman.
Owens warns the impact of such abuse is often extremely damaging.
She highlighted a case in the UK where a woman had seen ordinary social media images of herself, including photographs of her pregnancy, manipulated and uploaded to a pornographic website.
The victim in that case was publicly quoted as saying the offence impacted her mental health.
“The underlying feeling was shock and I initially felt quite ashamed, as if I’d done something wrong,” the woman said. “That was quite a difficult thing to overcome. And then, for a while, I got incredibly anxious about even leaving the house.”
Owens believes greater awareness is needed of the spiralling impacts of this type of digital abuse.
“The effects of this type of violence can be life changing for victims and we have seen reports internationally of self-harm and suicide among these types of crime,” she said.
New laws could be needed
Roberts and Bramwell encouraged victims to report incidents to police, noting that doing so can prevent perpetrators from targeting others. It can help an individual obtain the necessary assistance and support services that they may need.
“When somebody uses your image in a way that you didn’t consent to, and it’s hard to erase, that can affect you personally and in business,” Bramwell said.
Owens said offences under the ICT Act and stalking legislation can capture offending behaviours, but it is critical that criminal law keeps pace with new technologies as they emerge.
“Digital crime, and adding the layer of gender violence makes for a complex arena, it would be helpful to have legalisation that reflects the true extent of the threat, risk and harm being reported by members of our communities,” she said.
More commonly, she said, police encounter so-called ‘revenge porn’ cases, where intimate images shared consensually within a relationship are later distributed without consent. Such cases often involve additional offending behaviours, including control and coercion – behaviours that are not scheduled in law in the Cayman Islands as a crime.
Superintendent Richard Barrow said victims can come forward with confidence, RCIPS officers will respond professionally, with confidentiality and compassion.
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