IT worker who stole photos from female teachers' computers to make deepfakes sentenced to 3 years

An employee of a computer equipment management company who for years stole personal photos and videos from the computers of female teachers and other school staff at Busan schools to create and store deepfake sexual videos has been sentenced to prison.

The seventh criminal division of the Busan District Court, presided over by Chief Judge Im Ju-hyeok, sentenced a man in his 30s, identified only as A, to three years in prison on Friday. He was indicted on nine charges, including violations of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, according to Yonhap.

The court also ordered him to complete a 40-hour sexual violence treatment program and barred him from working at institutions serving children, adolescents and people with disabilities for 10 years.

A was indicted on charges of copying 221,921 files — including personal photos and videos — from the computers of 194 school staff members at 19 Busan schools onto his USB drive between July 2021 and September last year, then using the material to produce 20 deepfake videos.

During the same period, A illegally filmed up women's skirts and in similar situations on 45 occasions and downloaded and stored child and adolescent sexual exploitation material and other illegally filmed content from pornographic websites.

A total of 533 videos were found in his possession, including the deepfakes, with all illicit material totaling 405 gigabytes.

"The defendant committed crimes against an unspecified number of women, as well as teachers and students at the schools where he worked, making his conduct extremely egregious," the court said. "The victims appear to have suffered severe psychological distress."

The court added, however, that it had taken into account that A admitted to all charges and had no prior criminal record.