HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

Purported AI-Generated Sexual Deepfakes Allegedly Deployed in Transnational Harassment Campaign Targeting Hong Kong Exiles

November 11, 2025

In late 2025, purported deepfake images of exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were reportedly mailed to neighbors and others in the UK and Australia. These altered sexual images and false advertisements depicted victims, including Carmen Lau, as sex workers. Authorities labeled the materials as malicious communications, a worrying escalation of transnational harassment and intimidation against these exiles. Such incidents underscore the importance of responsible AI governance to prevent harm and uphold trustworthy and safe AI practices.

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Matched TAIM controls

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Alleged deployer
unknown-actors, unknown-malicious-actors, unidentified-harassment-campaign, suspected-transnational-repression-actors
Alleged developer
unknown-ai-image-generator-technology-developers
Alleged harmed parties
carmen-lau, ted-hui, ted-hui's-wife, hong-kong-pro-democracy-activists, family-members-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-activists, associates-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-activists, neighbors-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-activists, democracy, epistemic-integrity, national-security-and-intelligence-stakeholders

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1301

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.