MEP targeted by nude deepfakes urges the EU to make its December 'nudifier' ban enforceable

Austrian Green MEP Lena Schilling has described learning last month that sexualised AI-generated deepfakes of her were circulating online, and has urged the EU to act, as reported by The Guardian on 18 October. According to a report by the Berlin-based think tank Agora Digitale Transformation, 50 MEPs, 46 of them women, have been targeted by sexualised deepfakes; the Guardian says this is one in six female MEPs. A letter initiated by Schilling and German Green MEP Terry Reintke and signed by 119 MEPs calls on officials to make sure the EU-wide ban on apps and websites that use AI to undress women, scheduled to take effect on 2 December, comes with mechanisms capable of enforcing it. "A ban on paper protects no one until it is enforced," the letter says. EUobserver reported on 5 October that the letter asks the European Commission to guide national authorities on enforcing the ban, and for a designated, properly resourced body in every member state ready to apply it from December. The ban is among the new prohibitions on AI-generated non-consensual intimate material that the Digital Omnibus on AI added to the EU AI Act from 2 December 2026.

What it means for business: the 2 December prohibition applies whatever happens to the letter; providers and platforms offering AI image generation or editing in the EU may want to check their safeguards now, as MEPs are pressing for active enforcement.