Deepfake Abuse During Elections: Gráinne Seoige's Traumatic Experience

February 16, 2025

Gráinne Seoige, a candidate in Ireland's 2024 general election campaign, was targeted by an alleged deepfake abuse incident. Pornographic images, claimed to be AI-generated, of her were circulated online, causing her significant distress. The Gardaí launched an investigation into the distribution of the material. Deepfake incidents can have severe psychological impacts and underscore the importance of responsible AI governance, trustworthy AI, and safe and secure AI practices in our society. JOIN US in the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM to learn more about harm prevention strategies and guardrails for AI development.

Alleged deployer

unknown-disinformation-actors, unknown-deepfake-creators

Alleged developer

unknown-image-generator-technology, unknown-deepfake-technology-developers

Alleged harmed parties

voters-in-ireland, grainne-seoige, general-public-of-ireland, general-public, epistemic-integrity, electoral-integrity

AI governance case studies

For forensic AI governance failure analysis (TAIMScore™ case studies), browse Human Signal’s Failure Files™.

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.