A New Zealand MP last month held up an AI-generated nude photo of herself in Parliament to show how easy it is to make fake explicit images and how damaging they can be.
Laura McClure, a member of the ACT Party, created the deepfake of herself in just a few minutes using a website she found through a simple Google search. The censored image was shown during a debate on 14 May.
“This image is a naked image of me, but it’s not real,” she told Parliament. “It took me less than five minutes to make a series of deepfakes of myself.”
Speaking later in a video on social media, she said: “I brought to the attention of all the other members of Parliament about how easy it is to do this and how much abuse and harm it is causing, particularly for our young Kiwis and more likely to be our young females.”
🇳🇿 MP HOLDS UP AI-NUDE OF HERSELF IN PARLIAMENT TO FIGHT DEEPFAKES
New Zealand politician Laura McClure held up an AI-generated nude of herself in Parliament to push a law against fake explicit images.
She made it at home to show how easy it is to create deepfakes that can ruin… pic.twitter.com/G74KLOoh7o
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 2, 2025
She also said, “The problem isn’t the tech itself, but how it’s being misused to abuse people. Our laws need to catch up.”
McClure said she was “absolutely terrified” to show the image, but felt it was necessary to push for new laws to deal with deepfake abuse. Current laws in New Zealand do not directly cover deepfakes, although some rules exist for harmful digital communications.
She is now backing a new proposal called the Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill. It would update existing laws around revenge porn and intimate recordings, making it a crime to create or share deepfakes without consent. It would also give victims clearer ways to have content removed and seek justice.
Experts in New Zealand say most deepfake porn is created without consent, and almost all of it targets women. McClure hopes her act will help speed up legal reforms.
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“No one should ever be the target of deepfake porn especially without their consent,” she wrote in another post. “This is abuse, plain and simple. Our laws haven’t caught up, and that needs to change.”