Police investigate ‘explicitly altered’ images of Winnipeg high school students

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/12/2023 (689 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City police are investigating reports of AI-generated nude photos of underage students circulating at a local high school.

Members of the Winnipeg Police Service attended Collège Béliveau, a Grade 7-12 high school in Windsor Park, on Wednesday as part of a child pornography investigation.

No criminal charges have been laid to date.

“It’s an early investigation and AI is complicated. There’s all sorts of nuances that are just being developed in the law,” said Const. Dani McKinnon of the WPS public information office.

McKinnon declined to provide further comment Thursday, citing the sensitive nature of the situation and concerns about the victims involved.

High school administrators penned a letter to families to alert them they were first made aware of doctored photos of students shared online late Monday.

“The original photos appear to have been gathered from publicly accessible social media and explicitly altered,” states a memo signed by principal Andrea Kolody and vice-principal Jennifer Oldfield.

In their joint statement, Kolody and Oldfield said they were grateful for and proud of the students who came forward about the serious issue that breaches the Louis Riel School Division’s appropriate internet use and student behaviour policies.

The administrative team said the subsequent investigation has involved both internal and external sources.

The former includes the superintendent’s office, information systems department and clinical services staff. The latter group encompasses the WPS internet child exploitation unit and a national tip line run by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

“All images received by the school will be securely uploaded to Cybertip, through Project Arachnid, which specializes in the removal of these types of online images,” the principals wrote in the letter.

“It’s an early investigation and AI is complicated. There’s all sorts of nuances that are just being developed in the law”–Const. Dani McKinnon

“In a lot of cases, I don’t think (perpetrators) understand the gravity of what they’re doing. The images they’re outputting are technically child sexual abuse material,” said Lloyd Richardson, director of information technology at the Winnipeg-based organization that runs Cybertip and Project Arachnid.

Richardson noted apps that create so-called deep fakes — digitally altered content typically created for malicious purposes, including but not limited to spreading false information — have become increasingly advanced and accessible over the last two years.

The AI-image generator boom has created an “offshoot” of the traditional non-consensual sharing of intimate images, be it motivated by laughs or nefarious purposes, and its implications are no less damaging for victims, he said.

“It doesn’t really matter if the image is real or not — you’re still exposed in the same way,” Richardson said, adding technology has advanced to the point where it’s often difficult to discern a real image from a deep fake.

It will be critical to bolster public education about the illegalities of AI-generated nudes as these tools continue being refined and made more widely available, the IT director added.

A group of Grade 10 students who witnessed uniformed officers arrive at their high school Wednesday described the aftermath of the midday visit as emotional.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Jen Zoratti | Next

Wednesdays

What's next in arts, life and pop culture.

Sign up for Jen Zoratti | Next

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

The teenage boys reported seeing classmates cry in the hallways while others expressed anger about the early reports, which they said were initially relayed to members of the community by talkative teachers and victims.

“Everywhere we would go, everyone you’d walk by, they’d be talking about it,” one student said.

Another called the creation of falsified images of underage peers “very weird and messed up.”

The high school students indicated upwards of 300 photos are believed to have been created with dozens of faces of local teenage girls.

The Louis Riel School Division indicated Thursday it could not confirm how the images were altered or how many were published in total.

Béliveau’s leaders acknowledged the need for additional education about digital citizenship at the high school and indicated they are in the process of organizing learning opportunities to complement existing curricula.

While the principals said “feelings of anger, sadness and violation are normal,” they also warned vigilantism and retaliatory threats of violence will not be tolerated.

“Our responsibility as a school is to ensure the safety of all students. The school administration, in consultation with divisional officials, is taking necessary steps to respond to the actions of identified individuals who shared these images.”

Social workers and other student services professionals are being dispatched to assist students affected by the situation.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.