Germany Plans Legal Measures Against AI Image Manipulation

Germany’s justice ministry is preparing new measures to better combat the misuse of artificial intelligence to manipulate images in ways that violate personal rights, a spokesperson said on Friday, as reported by Reuters. The move follows growing concern over AI tools that can generate explicit or harmful content without the consent of those depicted.

Attention has focused on Grok, an AI chatbot integrated into Elon Musk’s social media platform X, which is under investigation in Europe over a feature allowing the creation of explicit images. A Reuters investigation found the tool had been used to generate images of women and children in minimal clothing, raising serious legal and ethical concerns. Germany’s media minister has urged the European Commission to intervene.

Justice ministry spokesperson Anna-Lena Beckfeld said large-scale digital manipulation amounted to systematic violations of personal rights. She said the ministry is working on tighter regulation of deepfakes and a proposed law against digital violence, aimed at strengthening legal protections for victims and improving access to justice.