eSafety Commissioner: ACT schools face AI deepfake image threat

The eSafety Commissioner issued warnings in early September 2026 after reports from under-18s about digitally altered intimate images including deepfakes doubled, prompting ACT schools to review how they share student photos publicly. Deputy director of the Australian Cybercrime Observatory Tim Cubitt warned that the risk profile is growing as perpetrators harvest publicly available or semi-public photos from school websites and social media profiles and manipulate them using widely available AI tools, representing a fundamentally different offending environment where otherwise innocent photos can be weaponised without requiring a hack or breach.

Guardii's anti-CSAM detection module, which identifies AI-generated and deepfake child sexual abuse material in real time, operates at the distribution point where synthetic explicit imagery is shared through direct messages on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other platforms. The system flags image-based abuse as it is sent to or from a child, blocking the content before it reaches the target and immediately escalating the incident to a parent, school or authority with jurisdiction over synthetic CSAM offences. By intercepting AI-generated abuse material at the moment of transmission rather than relying on retrospective complaint mechanisms, the platform prevents the circulation and compounding harm that occurs when deepfake imagery spreads unchecked across group chats and is re-shared before schools or families become aware of its existence.