Pupils using AI to create pornographic images of teachers

Pupils in Scottish schools have used AI to create sexual and violent images of their teachers and then share them on social media.

Some staff have been signed off work sick since the footage was shared around schools, with a teaching union saying the footage was humiliating for them.

Some of the clips have included clips where the likenesses of teachers were added to footage from porn films.

Fake social media accounts using the names of teachers are also being set up. While the details first emerged in the Renfrewshire area, BBC Scotland has been told the problem has been reported nationally.

Seamus Searson, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, told Radio Scotland Breakfast that the images often started out as an attempt at humour before taking a darker turn.

A paper to the Renfrewshire Joint Negotiating Committee for Teachers published earlier this week said the videos were "often humiliating, offensive, violent and (sometimes) sexual in nature".

Searson told BBC Scotland that in the Renfrewshire case a young person had put together images of a teacher in a "very compromising situation and it has been circulated around the school".

"All the children have seen these images and the teacher was left totally humiliated - it was intolerable for her to be in the school. This is now becoming a situation for all schools," he said.

"It can start at a very low level, but then escalates into very nasty situations. There are no boundaries on this, so therefore children think they can do these sorts of things without any comeback.

"It is open season on teachers with these images."

The union said there needed to be restrictions on children's access to social media, and that banning use of mobile phones in classes would not solve the problem, as the images were often being created out of school hours.

Paul Cochrane, the union's vice president, told BBC Scotland some of the reported cases included images of teachers being placed into pornographic clips.

He added that local authorities and police had been consulted regarding some of the images.

He said: "It's really concerning that this is so easy. You have a set of instructions, send off a picture and away it goes.

"In that sense, technology companies are allowing this. They have developed something that can take anybody's face and put it in a pornographic film. That is incredibly hurtful for those affected."

Renfrewshire Council said it has "robust policies in place" regarding violence and aggression, as well as acceptable use of ICT and mobile phone use in schools.

A spokesperson added: "While the nature of social media platforms makes online abuse a difficult issue to manage across society, we will always do what we can to protect our staff and will continue to work with teaching unions and any other group to consider how best to do that."

In January police investigated a school in County Armagh after explicit AI generated images of girls were shared among pupils, while police on the Isle of Man warned that the number of children using AI to generate indecent deepfake images had soared.

An Ofcom spokesperson said: "Under the Online Safety Act, tech firms must assess the risk of people in the UK encountering illegal content on their platforms, take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of UK users encountering it and take it down quickly when they become aware of it.

"They are also accountable for ensuring sites, platforms and apps are safer for the children who use them.

"It can be illegal to create or share non-consensual intimate images including sexual deepfakes created with AI and individuals who commit criminal offences online can face prosecution by law enforcement."