“Half of deepfake victims are minors… reports of ChatGPT-related abuse also filed”, 10 April 2025

Nearly half of those harmed by synthetic or edited content such as deepfakes—an issue that has become a growing social concern since last year—were found to be minors, according to recent findings.

According to the Report on Support for Victims of Digital Sexual Crimes, published on the 10th by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Korea Women’s Human Rights Institute, the number of ‘synthetic/edit’ content-related cases filed with the Centre for Support of Victims of Digital Sexual Crimes (CDVC) totalled 1,384 last year, marking a 227.2% increase from the previous year’s figure of 423.

By age group, those in their 20s accounted for the largest share at 46.4%, followed closely by teenagers at 46.2%. (…) Minors, including those under the age of 10, made up nearly half of all victims.

… Of the 26,318 websites identified by the CDVC as distributing or hosting illegal recordings, 95.4% were based overseas. This makes it considerably more difficult to secure cooperation for takedowns compared to domestic platforms, and results in significantly longer removal times.

…The number of content takedown support requests received by the CDVC surged from approximately 28,000 in 2018 to around 300,000 last year—more than a tenfold increase.

Meanwhile, staffing at the CDVC rose only slightly, from 39 personnel last year to 41 this year, with just two full-time positions added. Of those currently employed, eight are on fixed-term contracts.