According to Baroness Owen, young women are being discouraged from entering the public sphere due to their fear of deepfake porn. The 31-year-old Lady Owen, the second youngest member of the House of Lords, is leading the charge to outlaw the production or soliciting of deepfake porn, which consists of explicit images or films of people produced by artificial intelligence. Deepfake pornography is illegal to share or threaten to share, but it is permissible to make it or request that it be made. Baroness Owen refers to these flaws as "gaping omissions in our legislation where women are being failed," and that is only one of many. When asked if young women were being discouraged from assuming public roles because of the dangers of this type of technology.“The number of victims I’ve worked with who have been given advice by the police saying, “Just don’t post on social media” … It’s outrageous, because we can’t have a situation where women feel like they can’t post because of this threat.”Lady Owen added that deep fake porn is now a very real worry for all women, not just those who are in public life.

“There’s been a change in the balance over the years… it used to be public figures [targeted by deep fake porn], but now it’s not,” she said.

“The majority of it is of non-public figures. It could be anyone, and sometimes it’s someone you’ve met – any, any girl. So this is an issue for all women.”The Private Members Bill brought forward by Lady Owen had its second reading in the House of Lords last Friday. However, the Government has announced that it will not back it, saying it was “going to try to meet the objectives of the Bill through other legislation”.

The Bill is therefore unlikely to pass when it reaches the House of Commons. The decision was met with upset and outrage in the Lords, and Lady Owen said that she felt “huge frustration” at the situation.

“I actually felt so devastated seeing [victims] so upset in the gallery about this,” she said. “Looking up and seeing the campaigners and the victims who had come to watch this in tears, shaking their heads, was absolutely devastating.

Inspired by abuse survivor

Lady Owen said she had been inspired by Jodie, a survivor of deep fake porn abuse who contacted her after she first raised the issue in the chamber in February.

For five years, Jodie found that her images were being stolen from her private Instagram page and posted to forums by someone she counted as her best friend before they were made into sexually explicit images. One image depicted Jodie as a schoolgirl being raped by her teacher.