A 29-year-old sales worker has described the moment a group of men in a Perth bar allegedly photographed her without consent, used artificial intelligence to generate sexualised images, and then showed the results to her while laughing.
Jade Helen was enjoying wine with a friend at a venue in Perth, Australia, last Friday, when a group of eight to 10 men began what seemed like harmless banter. She says one of them secretly took her photo, fed it into an AI app, and created images showing her “making out” with several of the men.
Victim shown the images
“I had no idea he had taken a photo of me, then he put it into AI and altered the picture into sexualised content,” she told PerthNow. “One of the men had passed the photo around, actually showing it to me and my friend, and they were all just laughing about it.”
At first she tried to brush it off in shock, but her friend helped her understand the scale of the violation. “(My friend) said to me, ‘They’ve completely degraded you and withdrew your consent from this whole interaction, and just used you as entertainment’ - that’s when I realised how messed up it was.”
Police and venue response
The men also allegedly took a secret photo of her friend and created similar images. Jade reported the group to staff and then to Western Australia Police. The venue banned the men. “The venue took it really seriously straight away, they said that’s not how they treat people and it’s not the culture they want in their bar,” she said.
However, a detective told her: “Unfortunately, the law and law enforcement can be slow and behind the ball. At this point, there is no law that determines artificial intelligence created photos or media.”
Warnings and aftermath
Jade warned: “Given AI is so common nowadays, it means someone can just take an ordinary photo of you and within seconds, create something sexualised, degrading, or completely fabricated that looks really realistic. You don’t even have to pose… you don’t even have to know the person who’s creating it, and that’s frightening.”
After she spoke out on Instagram, she received messages urging her to contact the eSafety Commissioner, guidance she says she wishes police had provided. “They acknowledged it was wrong but there was just no guidance for me,” she said. Then came a private message from the man she says made the images. “I made the AI picture as a joke… because we have a running joke,” he wrote, adding: “that was wrong of me and you didn’t deserve any of that.”
Jade said that “running joke” claim terrified her most. “Saying it’s a running joke tells me it’s not the first time he’s done this to women. AI might be new, but respect isn’t.”
