Maradankerni Police have arrested five students for using artificial intelligence to manipulate a group photograph of 16 female teachers from a school in the Uduththurai area of Kankasanthurai to make them appear nude, then circulating the doctored images via WhatsApp, Newswire reported Thursday citing Lankadeepa.
The five suspects sat for this year’s GCE Ordinary Level examination and are currently awaiting results, police said. The arrests followed a complaint lodged by the school administration after the manipulated images were discovered in circulation.
During preliminary investigations, examination of the suspects’ mobile phones revealed that four of the students had the doctored images saved on their devices.
The case is the latest in a series of digital-image abuse incidents in Sri Lanka involving consumer AI tools, which have made photo manipulation widely accessible. The Computer Crime Act No. 24 of 2007 covers the unauthorised manipulation and circulation of digital images and intimate content, and police have increasingly used the act for image-based offences.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRCSL) and the Ministry of Public Security are working on a National Cyber Security Authority bill that would expand investigative powers and victim-protection mechanisms for online harms, including non-consensual intimate imagery.
Source: Newswire.
