Swiss court rules porn films with digitally rejuvenated actors are illegal

TF: porn films with digitally rejuvenated actors are illegal Keystone-SDA

Pornographic images or videos showing adults digitally rejuvenated to make them appear underage are illegal. This was decided by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (FSC), upholding the conviction of a man by the Zurich courts.

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Two years ago, the defendant received a suspended fine and a fine for the offences of pornography and depicting acts of crude violence, as well as violations of the Narcotics Act. He was accused of, among other things, sharing a video on his Instagram account with an apparently prepubescent girl. In reality, the latter was an actress rejuvenated through technology.

In a ruling published today, the court reiterated that the Criminal Code, since 2014, punishes not only real child pornography, but also “non-real” child pornography, which includes content generated exclusively virtually. However, until now the court had not ruled on whether fictitious child pornography created using rejuvenation software was punishable by law.

In its work prior to the 2014 revision, the legislature had expressed concern about the difficulty of determining whether a depiction was virtual or not. It had therefore concluded that prosecuting actual child pornography would be more complicated if “non-real” child pornography went unpunished.

According to the court in Lausanne, proving the age of the actors is no easier in cases like this of partially virtual pornography. This problem may even be much more complex than for child pornography cartoons, which are currently banned. In their ruling, they therefore conclude that the publication of red light material with adults digitally retouched to look like minors should be penalised in the same way as content generated entirely by computer.

Adapted from Italian by AI/jdp

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