Officer used licence database to make deepfakes

A Pennsylvania police officer accessed the state's driver's license database 300 times without authorization to harvest photos of women for AI-generated deepfakes. (pennlive.com Trooper Jordan T. Adam of the Pennsylvania State Police faces felony charges including computer trespass, interception and disclosure of communications, and unlawful use of a computer. He allegedly created explicit deepfake videos superimposing victims' faces—including those from his sexual assault cases—onto pornographic content. (pennlive.com Adam targeted at least 75 women, including a female judge presiding over one of his assault cases, by searching the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's (PennDOT) JNET system—a restricted law enforcement network. The probe began after a sexual assault victim discovered her face in a deepfake video online in 2023. (pennlive.com Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to swap one person's face onto another's body in videos, often requiring only a clear photo like those on driver's licenses—Pennsylvania stores over 9 million such images digitally. Tools like Stable Diffusion or Faceswap apps, freely available online, can generate realistic nudes in minutes with minimal computing power. (wired.com Pennsylvania's JNET provides officers legitimate access to DMV records for investigations, but logs every query—Adam's 300 unauthorized searches from 2022-2024 triggered an internal audit. State police suspended him without pay in July 2024 and referred the case to the state Attorney General. (pennlive.com Victims reported emotional trauma, with one telling investigators the deepfake "destroyed my sense of safety." Adam's attorney declined comment, but court records show he denied creating the videos during questioning. (pennlive.com This case echoes 2023 federal charges against Massachusetts cop Matthew Darby, who misused license photos for deepfake porn of 175 women, highlighting gaps in database oversight. At least 10 U.S. states now restrict police access to DMV images for non-investigative purposes. (arstechnica.com) Congress is advancing the DEFIANCE Act of 2024, allowing deepfake porn victims to sue creators for up to $150 million in damages. No federal law yet criminalizes non-consensual deepfakes, leaving enforcement to states. (congress.gov) Pennsylvania State Police tightened JNET training post-incident, mandating annual audits for high-volume users. Adam's arraignment is set for November 2024 in Dauphin County Court. (pennlive.com