Federal justice minister calls alleged deepfake porn crimes ‘heinous’

Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser has called the alleged crimes of a Nova Scotia man with ties to Nunavut “heinous.”

Stephen Lowe, 60, has been charged with 79 offences related to the alleged online exploitation and harassment of dozens of victims.

“I am just so sorry that people have to go through this. Think about their lives and what has changed for them on a day to day. They don’t know who has seen these images or for what purpose,” he said Thursday outside the House of Commons.

Fraser spoke to reporters after the third reading of Bill C-16, which seeks to criminalize the production of non-consensual deepfake pornography.

Ottawa Police have identified 25 alleged victims. Approximately 10 additional Nunavummiut have spoken to RCMP about their alleged experiences with Lowe. As of Thursday, no charges have been laid in connection with those Nunavut allegations.

Lowe spent approximately two decades living in the territory off and on.

Many of the charges revolve around the creation of non-consensual deepfake imagery, an Ottawa Police Service news release said last week.

Deepfake pornography involves the transposing of a person’s picture onto the bodies of pornographic actors via a high-powered computer. Generative AI, which is a somewhat different technology, can be used for similar purposes.

The government has accelerated Bill C-16 partially because of Lowe’s case, Fraser said. The Liberal government introduced the bill in the House of Commons last December.

“We need to move as quickly as we possibly can, not just to provide comfort to the victims of this particular perpetrator, but to demonstrate this doesn’t have to happen to other people,” he said.

Given that production of consensual deepfake pornography has been a problem for years, Nunatsiaq News asked Fraser whether the government should have acted sooner.

“Is it possible that there could have been action taken years ago? Perhaps. But I would point out the proliferation of the technology has accelerated and continues to accelerate.”

Lowe’s alleged crimes span five years from 2020 to 2025.

“It is a bigger problem today, then it was yesterday. It is going to be a bigger problem tomorrow,” Fraser said. “So you can always, over the benefit of hindsight, say we should have done a good thing at a different time, but it is never the wrong time to do the right thing.”