ISTANBUL

Deepfake crimes among South Korean teenagers have nearly doubled from 2020 to 2024, the Korea Herald reported on Monday, citing data from the National Police Agency (NPA).

Last year, 1,372 teenagers were charged with offenses such as recording other people's bodies and creating or disseminating exploitative images and videos using deepfakes.

The number increased year after year, from 710 in 2020 to 941 in 2021, 1,040 in 2022, and 1,224 in 2023, according to a report compiled by Rep. Kang Kyung Sook of the minor opposition Rebuilding Korea Party using police data.

Deepfake-related crimes have risen dramatically, increasing tenfold from 52 cases in 2022 to 548 by 2024. In September, 251 of 318 people charged with deepfake sex crimes were teenagers, accounting for 78.9% of the total.

In just the first eight months of this year, 556 teens were charged with deepfake sex crimes, which is significantly higher than the same period last year and already exceeds the total for the entire year of 2024. By August, teenagers accounted for 59.4% of those suspected in such cases.

Teen involvement in such crimes increased dramatically from 2,688 cases in 2020 to a high of 4,578 in 2022 before falling slightly to 4,260 by 2024.