Until recently, only a few people probably knew what exactly was meant by “digital violence”. That changed last spring. Actress Collien Fernandes accused her ex-husband of “virtually raping” her. The perpetrator is said to have distributed videos and photos that were intended to give the impression that she had filmed herself having sex and photographed herself naked.
In Lower Saxony, a sexualized deepfake caused a stir: an employee of the CDU state parliamentary group was accused of having distorted the image of a colleague in the parliamentary group using AI and sharing it in a chat group called “MitMembers”. The colleague is said to have been seen in sexualized poses.
The Ministry of Justice, which had long been planning a law against such attacks on the Internet, published a draft, and the measures are now going to the cabinet. Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) said in the spring that she makes “no distinction between analogue and digital violence”. Every attack, no matter where or how it occurs, is “one too many”.
Many welcome stricter steps and actually see a gap. But there were also critical tones: He observed that the word “violence” was being used with an ever-expanding meaning, especially with the additions “psychological,” “sexualized” – and now “digital,” Regensburg criminal law professor Tonio Walter told WELT AM SONNTAG in March. According to Walter, society as a whole is probably becoming more sensitive to all forms of aggressiveness - even if he thinks it is appropriate to punish the spread of deepfakes, for example.
Several measures are now planned: “In the future, there will be two criminal offenses in the criminal code that specifically concern deepfakes that were created without the consent of the person depicted,” said Hubig to WELT and “Politico.” "In the case of pornographic deepfakes, the very act of producing them should be punishable. For all other deepfakes, the distribution can be punishable if they can cause significant harm to the person depicted." This is “a clear signal in both directions – that of the victims as well as the perpetrators,” said Hubig.
Those affected should also be able to find out more easily “who is behind illegal content”, enforce its deletion and, in serious cases, even have accounts temporarily blocked. Of course, perpetrators could try to create a new account, says Hubig. "But even if they are successful, they won't have anyone with 20,000 followers. It's also about depriving perpetrators of their reach."
The CDU and SPD had already agreed in the coalition agreement to close gaps in criminal liability “in the case of image-based sexual violence” - several months before the cases discussed in the spring became known. Women had previously reported finding AI-generated nude photos of themselves online, deceptively real and in suggestive poses. Reports sometimes led to nothing because such forgeries were often not covered by criminal law.
“Market with rape videos”
There is a tightening in the handling of rape videos. Contrary to what was stipulated in the original draft law, the possession of such recordings should in future be punishable - and not just their production or distribution. “There is a real market for rape videos,” said Hubig. What is needed here is clear social ostracism. The federal government agreed “that we also have to counteract this phenomenon”.
At the same time, another planned criminal provision was defused. It concerns photographs of clothed intimate parts of the body. In the future, such recordings should only be punishable if they “obviously only aim” to sexualize the intimate parts of another person’s body. “Casually taking photos of other people is of course not covered,” says Hubig.
It is already forbidden to take photos up other people's skirts or into their cleavage. It is not yet forbidden to take photos of other people's clothed chests or buttocks. One such case caused a stir in February 2025. Yanni Gentsch from Cologne reported that a man filmed her while jogging – “aimed at her bottom”. The man did not deny his behavior and even asked her why she was wearing “those pants.” His film recordings were not punishable.
There were already proposals to change this before the federal government drafted the bill - but there was also criticism. “Of course, such behavior is reprehensible and morally condemnable,” said Saxony’s Justice Minister Constanze Geiert (CDU) last fall, referring to the corresponding recordings of intimate parts of the body. “But criminal law is not a super-moral authority.”
