Introduction

When asked about experiencing abuse, including online abuse, for a 2016 global study on harassment against women members of parliament, several participants expressed resignation: “It is the norm. If you react, everyone says, ‘So what? Big deal!’” Another parliamentarian from sub-Saharan Africa described these attacks as part of “the political culture,” stating, “You have to get used to it.”¹ This normalization of abuse reveals a troubling acceptance of incidents that should be recognized as a serious threat to democratic participation.

Nonconsensual synthetic intimate images (NSII) pose a documented threat to women in politics. Yet this form of image-based abuse remains largely overlooked in discussions of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on democratic processes. A 2016 survey of 55 women parliamentarians from 39 countries revealed that 42 percent of respondents had encountered “extremely humiliating or sexually charged” images of themselves shared on social media, including doctored images depicting them nude.² Since easily accessible AI-based tools to generate images were introduced in 2022, the problem for women political leaders has likely become much worse. Despite extensive media attention on the potential for AI-generated impersonations to disrupt elections, NSII targeting individuals in the political sphere, including candidates as well as elected and unelected public officials (hereafter collectively referred to as “public officials”), remains vastly underreported and underresearched.³

This report aims to address this critical gap in research by examining how NSII is weaponized against public officials across countries and varying political contexts. Through exploratory analysis of 100 documented cases in 14 countries, this study investigates which public officials are targeted globally, documents the specific tactics and internet ecosystems enabling these attacks, and examines their impact on victims. These documented cases likely represent only the visible portion of a much larger phenomenon. The findings presented here inform evidence-based recommendations designed to prevent NSII creation and limit its spread, and ultimately to protect democratic participation from this evolving technological threat.