Delhi Man Allegedly Used AI to Create and Circulate Obscene Images of College Acquaintance

Delhi police alleged that a man named Keshav Bansal used photographs from a college acquaintance's private social media account with AI image-generation and editing tools to create obscene morphed images and upload them to anonymous Discord servers. The woman reported fake accounts and threatening messages intended to humiliate and harass her. Police arrested Bansal and said the investigation was ongoing.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

The perpetrator used AI tools to create humiliating and obscene imagery of a specific victim to target, harass, and manipulate her reputation, which fits sub-domain 4.3 under boundary rule B1.

Additional risk subdomains

• 1.2 Exposure to toxic content: The incident involved the creation and public/semi-public circulation of obscene and explicit synthetic content on Discord and Instagram.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The incident was caused by a human actor who intentionally used deployed AI tools to generate and circulate non-consensual explicit imagery of a victim.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Risk Level 3. Limited Risk: The report describes the creation of AI-generated content such as deepfakes, which are subject to specific transparency obligations under the Act.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: AI-based image-generation and editing technology
• AI purpose: Deepfake Image Generation; Image Retouching
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Synthetic media generation technology developers, Synthetic image generation technology developers, Deepfake technology developers
• Alleged deployer: Synthetic media creators, Keshav Bansal, Deepfake creators
• Alleged harmed parties: Women and girls, Women, Victims of non-consensual deepfakes, Victims of deepfake abuse, Privacy, Individuals subjected to sexual exploitation imagery, Epistemic integrity

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Minor, indirect Minor
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Malicious content

Reported: The report explicitly describes the creation and circulation of obscene and explicit AI-generated images and videos.

Directly caused: The perpetrator used AI tools to create obscene morphed images of the victim and uploaded them to anonymous Discord servers.

Indirectly caused: Other unknown online users created and circulated even more explicit AI-generated images and videos of the victim, which the perpetrator then reposted.

Inferred additional harm: The explicit content likely remains on various online servers, potentially exposing an unknown number of internet users to non-consensual explicit content.

Privacy

Reported: The report explicitly describes privacy violations caused directly by the incident.

Directly caused: The perpetrator accessed the victim's photographs from her private social media account without her consent to create explicit morphed images.

Inferred additional harm: The victim's personal privacy was severely compromised by having her private likeness harvested and transformed into explicit material without consent, affecting 1 person.

Psychological

Reported: The report explicitly describes psychological harm in the form of harassment, humiliation, and threatening messages.

Directly caused: The victim received threatening messages intended to humiliate and harass her following the circulation of the morphed images.

Inferred additional harm: It is highly likely that the victim suffered severe emotional distress, anxiety, and trauma due to the targeted online harassment and non-consensual sexualization of her likeness, affecting 1 person.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 1
• People reportedly exposed: 1

Potential causes

Technology

• AI image-generation tools: AI-based editing tools allowed creation of obscene morphed images.
• Anonymity of online platforms: Fake profiles and Discord servers allowed the creator to hide identity.

Data Inputs

• Private social media photos: The perpetrator obtained the victim's photos from her social media account.
• Victim's facial images: Facial images were used as inputs for generating obscene content.

Human Factors

• Personal resentment: Perpetrator harbored a college grudge and sought revenge for insults.
• Intent to harass: The perpetrator aimed to humiliate and threaten the victim online.
• Malicious online community: Other users created and shared even more explicit morphed images.

Process and Methods

• Multi-account creation: Operating multiple fake accounts and Gmails to distribute content.
• Reposting explicit content: The perpetrator reshared additional explicit content made by others.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The reports provide clear, consistent, and detailed factual accounts of the incident, including the arrest of the perpetrator, his motives, and the specific actions taken using AI tools. There is no conflicting information between the two sources.

A localized cyber-harassment incident in India involving the creation of non-consensual explicit deepfakes of a single victim. The perpetrator was arrested by local cyber police. The incident has negligible national security implications.

• Overall national security impact: Negligible
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: India
• Alleged perpetrator: Individual

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The perpetrator has been arrested and the active threat has been neutralized by law enforcement.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI image-generation tools were directly operated by the human perpetrator as tools.
• Novelty: Established threat. Non-consensual deepfakes and image morphing for harassment are well-established malicious uses of AI.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No impact on physical systems, infrastructure, or human safety.
• Information security: Negligible. No evidence of state-sponsored information warfare, intelligence compromise, or systemic disinformation.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. Incident involves a localized civil criminal matter with no impact on government functions or state sovereignty.
• Economic security: Negligible. No impact on strategic industries, economic stability, or national technological advantages.
• Societal stability: Negligible. Localized harassment and privacy violation of a single individual, presenting no large-scale threat to societal stability.