FOI 0386-2025/26- Deeepfakes

Request:

Pease can you provide me with the total number of offences recorded by police, broken down by month, since January 2024, of the following offences below. I’m specifically interested in those offences below relating to artificial intelligence usage, so I would like a breakdown to only include those offences which mention “AI”, “artificial intelligence” or “deep fake” or “deepfake” in the crime MO notes – NB: if the force already has its own AI flag, please use that instead of the keyword search.

For each month since and including January 2023, up to the latest month available, could I have the AI-related offences (as classified using the above search terms):

Q1. Under Section 66b The Sexual Offences Act 2003 (the offence of sharing or threatening to share an intimate photograph or film of, or appearing to be of, someone - colloquially known as ‘revenge pornography’ – see college of policing guidance here: https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/sharing-photographs-of-people-intimate-state)

Q2. Under Section 66 E-F The Sexual Offences Act 2003 (the offence of creating purported intimate image of adult or Requesting the creation of purported intimate image of adult - basically the creation of revenge pornography)

Q3. Under Section 1a Protection of Children Act 1978 (creating sexually explicit images / pseudo images of a child)

Q4. Under Section 1b Protection of Children Act 1978 (to distribute or show such indecent photographs)

Q5. Under Section 1c Protection of Children Act 1978 (to possess such indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs)

Response: 

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police.

I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police. 

Q1-5. The information you have requested is published on the North Yorkshire Police website under the following link:

FOI 0994-2023/24 Deepfake Offences | North Yorkshire Police

I have therefore decided to exempt providing you with a response to question 1-5 pursuant to Section 21 Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act).

Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

Section 21 – Information Reasonably Accessible by Other Means

Section 21 is an absolute class based exemption and I am not required to consider the harm or public interest when applying this exemption.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice in response to your request.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.