Students Allegedly Used AI to Create and Share Fake Nude Images of Classmates in Puente Alto, Chile

Students at Colegio Alicante del Sol, a school in Puente Alto, Chile, allegedly used AI tools to turn female classmates' Instagram photos into fake nude images and circulated them among other students. Families reported panic attacks among affected girls. The school suspended implicated students, and Chile's education oversight authority opened an investigation into its response.

Risk classification

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

The incident involved the targeted creation and distribution of humiliating sexual imagery (deepfakes) of specific victims for personal amusement or harassment, which directly aligns with sub-domain 4.3.

Additional risk subdomains

• 1.2 Exposure to toxic content: The creation and distribution of sexually explicit deepfakes of minors exposed the school community to highly inappropriate and toxic content.

Causal factors

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

The harm was caused by the intentional actions of students who used a deployed AI tool to generate and distribute non-consensual sexual deepfakes of their classmates.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The incident involves the creation of AI-generated content (deepfakes), which falls under Risk Level 3 due to transparency and disclosure obligations.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: None named
• 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, Students implicated in the Colegio Alicante del Sol image-abuse case, Students, Minors, High school students, Deepfake creators, Adolescents
• Alleged harmed parties: Women and girls, Privacy, Minors, High school students, Girls, Female students at Colegio Alicante del Sol, Epistemic integrity, Educational communities, Adolescents, Adolescent girls

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Substantial. 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 Minor
• Psychological: direct Minor, indirect Minor
• Epistemic: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Substantial, indirect Negligible

Malicious content

Reported: The report explicitly describes the creation and distribution of toxic and malicious content.

Directly caused: AI tools were used to generate sexually explicit deepfake images of underage female students.

Indirectly caused: The generated sexual deepfakes were compiled and distributed digitally among the school community.

Privacy

Reported: The report explicitly describes privacy violations.

Directly caused: The students' public Instagram photos were scraped and processed without consent to generate sexualized images.

Indirectly caused: The resulting deepfakes were shared among other students, violating their personal privacy.

Psychological

Reported: The report explicitly describes severe psychological distress and panic attacks among the victims.

Directly caused: Several targeted female students suffered panic attacks ('crisis de panico') upon discovering the fake nude images of themselves.

Indirectly caused: Victims suffered further panic attacks and distress due to bullying, mocking, and threats from the perpetrators and a parent after they returned to school.

Inferred additional harm: Long-term psychological trauma, anxiety, and social difficulties are highly likely for the targeted students and their families.

Child sexual exploitation and abuse

Reported: The report explicitly describes a CSEA incident involving AI-generated sexually explicit content of minors.

Directly caused: The incident involved the creation of AI-generated sexually explicit imagery of high school students, who are minors.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 10
• People reportedly exposed: 100

Potential causes

Management

• Inadequate Risk Assessment: School management failed to anticipate escalation upon students return.
• Poor Communication with Families: Families were not informed timely about the incident details.

Technology

• AI Image Manipulation Tools: Easy access to AI tools allowed creation of realistic fake nudes.
• Digital Distribution Platforms: Digital platforms facilitated rapid sharing of the generated material.

Data Inputs

• Public Social Media Photos: Students downloaded public Instagram photos to use as inputs for AI.

Human Factors

• Lack of Student Ethical Awareness: Students used AI to harm peers without considering consequences.
• Victim Blaming and Mockery: Returned students mocked victims, escalating emotional distress.

Process and Methods

• Inadequate School Response: School failed to provide proper communication and support to victims.
• Flawed Disciplinary Measures: A short suspension followed by return to school escalated conflicts.

Regulatory Environment

• Lack of AI Content Regulations: Absence of clear laws governing non-consensual AI-generated imagery.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The reports provide consistent, detailed accounts of the incident, including the timeline, the school involved, the reactions of the victims and families, and the subsequent school protests and police intervention. The role of AI in generating the deepfakes is clearly stated.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific AI tool or app used by the students is not named.

Students at a Chilean school used AI tools to generate non-consensual sexual deepfakes of classmates, causing severe psychological distress, local protests, and minor school altercations. While the incident represents a serious violation of privacy and human rights for the minors involved, its national security impact is minor and restricted to localized societal disruption manageable by local authorities.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: Chile
• Alleged perpetrator: Students of Colegio Alicante del Sol

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The immediate school crisis has been addressed by local authorities, representing an ongoing societal and regulatory challenge rather than an active national crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI system was used strictly as a tool controlled by human users to manipulate images, with no autonomous decision-making.
• Novelty: Established threat. The creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes using readily available AI tools is a well-established global threat with numerous prior precedents.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No threats to critical infrastructure, kinetic military assets, or national physical security occurred. Localized school fights and protests do not constitute a national security concern.
• Information security: Negligible. No intelligence compromise, classified data theft, or state-sponsored information warfare operations were involved in this localized incident.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. Core government operations and national sovereignty remained entirely unaffected, though local police and education authorities responded to the school-level incident.
• Economic security: Negligible. There was no impact on national financial systems, strategic industries, or technological competitive advantage.
• Societal stability: Minor. The incident involved severe violations of privacy and human rights of minors through non-consensual deepfakes, leading to local protests and minor physical altercations, but it remains a localized issue.