Campaigners are warning the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create realistic but fake nude images of real women is becoming “normalised”.

It’s also an increasing concern in schools. A recent survey by Internet Matters found 13% of teenagers have had an experience with nude deepfakes, while the NSPCC told Sky News “a new harm is developing”.

Ofcom will later this month introduce codes of practice for internet companies to clamp down on the illegal distribution of fake nudes, but Sky News has met two victims of this relatively new trend, who say the law needs to go further.

Earlier this year, social media influencer and former Love Island contestant, Cally Jane Beech, 33, was horrified when she discovered someone had used AI to turn an underwear brand photograph of her into a nude and it was being shared online.

The original image had been uploaded to a site that uses software to digitally transform a clothed picture into a naked picture.

She told Sky News: “It looked so realistic, like nobody but me would know. It was like looking at me, but also not me.”

She added: “There shouldn’t be such a thing. It’s not a colouring book. It’s not a bit of fun. It’s people’s identity and stripping their clothes off.”

When Cally reported what had happened to the police, she struggled to get them to treat it as a crime.

“They didn’t really know what they could do about it, and because the site that hosted the image was global, they said that it’s out of their jurisdiction,” she said.

In November, Assistant Chief Constable Samantha Miller, of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, addressed a committee of MPs on the issue and concluded “the system is failing”, with a lack of capacity and inconsistency of practice across forces.

ACC Miller told the women and equalities committee she’d recently spoken to a campaigner who was in contact with 450 victims and “only two of them had a positive experience of policing”.

The government says new legislation outlawing the generation of AI nudes is coming next year, although it is already illegal to make fake nudes of minors.

Meanwhile, the problem is growing with multiple apps available for the purpose of unclothing people in photographs. Anyone can become a victim, although it is nearly always women.

Professor Clare McGlynn, an expert in online harms, said: “We’ve seen an exponential rise in the use of sexually explicit deepfakes. For example, one of the largest, most notorious websites dedicated to this abuse receives about 14 million hits a month.

“These nudify apps are easy to get from the app store, they’re advertised on Tik Tok, So, of course, young people are downloading them and using them. We’ve normalised the use of these nudify apps.”

‘Betrayed by my best friend’

Sky News spoke to “Jodie” (not her real name) from Cambridge who was tipped off by an anonymous email that she appeared to be in sex videos on a pornographic website.

“The images that I posted on Instagram and Facebook, which were fully clothed, were manipulated and turned into sexually explicit material,” she said.

Jodie began to suspect someone she knew was posting pictures and encouraging people online to manipulate them.

Then she found a particular photograph, taken outside King’s College in Cambridge, that only one person had.

It was her best friend, Alex Woolf. She had airdropped the picture to him alone.

Woolf, who once won BBC young composer of the year, was later convicted of offences against 15 women, mostly because of Jodie’s perseverance and detective work.

Even then, his conviction only related to the offensive comments attached to the images, because while it’s illegal to share images – it’s not a crime to ask others to create them.

He was given a suspended sentence and ordered to pay £100 to each of his victims.

Jodie believes it’s imperative new laws are introduced to outlaw making and soliciting these types of images.

“My abuse is not your fun,” she said.

“Online abuse has the same effect psychologically that physical abuse does. I became suicidal, I wasn’t able to trust those closest to me because I had been betrayed by my best friend. And the effect of that on a person is monumental.”

‘A scary, lonely place’

A survey in October by Teacher Tap found 7% of teachers answered yes to the question: “In the last 12 months, have you had an incident of a student using technology to create a fake sexually graphic image of a classmate?”

In their campaigning both Cally and Jodie have come across examples of schoolgirls being deep faked.

Cally said: “It is used as a form of bullying because they think it’s funny. But it can have such a mental toll, and it must be a very scary and lonely place for a young girl to be dealing with that.”

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The NSPCC said it has had calls about nude deepfakes to its helpline.

The charity’s policy manager for child safety online, Rani Govender, said the pictures can be used as “part of a grooming process” or as a form of blackmail, as well as being passed around by classmates “as a form of bullying and harassment”.

“Children become scared, isolated and they worry they won’t be believed that the images are created by someone else,” Ms Govender said.

She added: “This is a new harm, and it is developing, and it will require new measures from the government with child protection as a priority.”

Alex Davies-Jones, under-secretary of state for victims, told MPs in November: “We’ve committed to making an offence of creating a deepfake illegal and we will be legislating for that this session.”

For campaigners like Jodie and Cally the new laws can’t come soon enough. However, they worry they won’t have strong enough clauses around banning the soliciting of content and ensuring images are removed once they’ve been discovered.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

Sir Keir Starmer has said it is not his “plan” to increase any more taxes before the next election – but he cannot categorically rule them out if “unforeseen circumstances” strike the government.

The prime minister told the BBC he did not “want to suggest we’re going to keep coming back for more because that isn’t the plan”.

However, he said the war in Ukraine and the COVID pandemic were examples of events “we can’t see now” that might necessitate further tax hikes.

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The prime minister’s words come after Rachel Reeves, his chancellor, initially ruled out further tax rises in a speech to business earlier this month – only to fail to repeat the pledge just days later.

Some of the tax rises announced in the October budget – including an increase in employers’ national insurance contributions and changes in inheritance tax for some farmers – have proved to be unpopular with the public, with the latter group staging protests to highlight their unhappiness with the measure.

Asked why he believed his popularity had dropped since the election, the prime minister said it was because he had taken “tough decisions” early on in his premiership.

“I just don’t want to do what politicians have done in the past which is to get in the warm bath of empty promises,” he told the BBC.

“I’m prepared to roll up my sleeves and tell people it’s tough – we’re going to do it but you’re going to be better off.”

He added: “You’ll have a better health service, you’ll have better houses, you’ll have better energy bills at the end of this and I’ll be judged, quite rightly, at the end of the parliamentary term whether I’ve delivered on what I said I would deliver on.”

In response, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said: “Keir Starmer has already raised taxes to historic levels. Now he claims he wants to give business certainty but he can’t answer a very basic question – will he or won’t he raise more taxes.

“We can see clearly the impact of his and Rachel Reeves’ first budget already – yesterday the Bank of England reported that the majority of businesses planned to put up prices and reduce jobs while the CBI is cutting growth projections.

“It’s no wonder he’s been forced to drop his commitment to grow the economy.”

On Thursday the prime minister gave a major speech in which he promised change with six new “milestones” he said would be reached by the end of this parliament – including raising living standards in every part of the UK, building 1.5m homes in England and fast-tracking planning decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects.

He said they would “drive forward” his party’s missions and allow the public to “hold our feet to the fire” – but he was challenged on why bringing down migration had failed to make the list.

The prime minister said in response: “It is our duty to do it [bring migration down]. And we will do it.”

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Speaking to Sky News this morning, housing minister Matthew Pennycook said the UK needed to invest in training and apprenticeships for its “ageing construction workforce” to meet the prime minister’s milestone for housing and infrastructure.

For this, he said “some overseas workers will be required”.

“The previous government added construction to the shortage occupation list – it’s made a bit of a difference, but not enough,” he said.

Pressed on whether bringing more workers would be good for Labour’s plans to reduce migration, Mr Pennycook said it was the last government that made it easier for builders and tradespeople to get visas.

Passengers are facing delays across the UK after engineers found rail workers could not automatically log in to a radio communication system.

National Rail said the fault was discovered in the GSMR radio system, which allows communication between train drivers and signal operators even in tunnels.

A back-up manual log-in system is now in use, but this is causing “a few minutes of delay”.

Latest as nationwide fault hits rush hour

This issue “is currently being investigated”, National Rail said, warning it expects the delays affecting some of its services to last until midday.

“Trains across the network are having to start their journeys later because of this fault and some may also be subject to cancellations or alterations.”

In a post on social media, it said services across the Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Southern and Thameslink network may be cancelled, delayed by up to 15 minutes or revised.

Services to Heathrow Airport on the Elizabeth line have also been affected, with passengers told to wait for the next available train.

Those using ScotRail are now allowed to travel via “any reasonable route” because of the issue.

South Western Railway also told passengers its services may be delayed.

In a later update just before midday it said the fault with the radio system had been fixed.

A spokesperson for the government-owned company said: “An overnight fault with our railway radio system in England and Wales has been traced to one of our major hubs near Stoke, which has now been fixed.

“The fault meant that train drivers were having to manually log in to the national radio network rather than it happening automatically.

“The system is now working normally.

“We’re sorry if your journey has been affected today as a result of this issue.”

For those seeking compensation, National Rail has advised customers to keep hold of train tickets and to make a note of the journey, as both would support any claim.

Helen Dewdney, a consumer rights expert who runs The Complaining Cow site, said passengers are entitled to a 50% refund for a delay of more than 60 minutes.

One passenger travelling from Portsmouth to Basingstoke at 6.32am said he had to pay £54 for a taxi through Uber as it’s the first week of his new job.

Matthew told Sky News he will claim the money back from South Western Railway.

Read more: My train has been delayed or cancelled – can I get a refund?

‘Rare’ fault behind delay

GSMR is designed to enable drivers and signallers to communicate digitally at all times, including while trains are in tunnels or areas where analogue systems do not work.

It was rolled out to increase safety and reduce costs by replacing the patchwork of inefficient legacy systems which were expensive to maintain.

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Railway journalist Nigel Harris said he hasn’t seen an issue like this in 40 years covering the industry, describing the fault as “very, very rare”.

He suggested it could have come from a technical problem or even an attack by hackers, adding: “We just don’t know.”

“It can take a few seconds to reboot something, or it can cause chaos for a long time,” he told Sky News.

“The tone of the communication from Network Rail seems fairly optimistic, so I would hope that by lunchtime we can get the system back.”