Australian education unions have warned that artificial intelligence-generated sexualised deepfakes are increasingly being used to target schoolgirls and female teachers, and urged the federal government to strengthen legal protections as schools struggle to respond to rapidly evolving technology.
Unions report doubling of incidents and weekly cases
The Australian Education Union (AEU) told a federal parliamentary inquiry in Melbourne that reports of deepfake image abuse involving school-aged children had doubled in 18 months, and that there was now at least one school-related incident reported each week. The union described the technology as lowering the barriers to creating explicit manipulated images of female students and teachers, creating fresh safety and wellbeing challenges for schools.
“We should not have to wait until girls or female teachers are harmed before protections are put in place,”
The comment was made by Independent Education Union federal secretary Brad Hayes, who told the inquiry that AI-generated abuse had become a serious safety and wellbeing issue across both public and private schools.
Teachers face increased burden and risk of leaving the profession
AEU federal secretary Nicole Calnan said teachers were also being targeted and that some incidents could be driving staff out of the profession. The union said departments and schools were struggling to keep pace with constantly changing technology and its misuse.
Ms Calnan told the inquiry that, despite government assurances that AI could reduce teacher workload, members were not seeing those benefits. Instead, teachers were spending extra time checking and correcting AI-generated material and responding to harm caused by manipulated images.
- Reports of deepfake abuse involving school-aged children have doubled in 18 months.
- Unions say there is at least one school-related incident each week.
- Unions urge a digital duty of care that covers both students and staff, not children alone.
Calls for wider duty of care and better procurement consultation
Both unions told the inquiry that a proposed digital duty of care should be extended beyond children to protect all Australians, including staff. They argued that legal protections and regulatory safeguards are needed more quickly to prevent harm, rather than reacting after abuses have occurred.
The unions also raised concerns about how AI platforms have been introduced into schools. They said education departments were often making procurement decisions before teachers had been consulted, leaving staff to adapt to systems they had little say in selecting. Brad Hayes warned that this was forcing schools to manage the consequences of AI adoption before adequate safeguards were established.
Practical consequences for schools
School leaders already dealing with safeguarding, wellbeing and curriculum pressures now face an additional burden: identifying and responding to AI-manipulated imagery and the distress it causes pupils and staff. The unions’ submissions underline a practical tension between the potential educational uses of AI and the immediate harms its misuse can create.
| Metric | Union evidence |
|---|---|
| Change in reported incidents | Doubled in 18 months |
| Frequency of school-related reports | At least one per week |
The unions are urging policy-makers to consider both statutory protections and stronger guidance for schools on procurement, staff training, reporting mechanisms and victim support. They say that without such measures, the spread of tools that can fabricate explicit imagery will continue to add to workloads and threaten the safety of pupils and staff alike.
As departments weigh the benefits of AI for teaching and administration, the submissions to the inquiry underline the need for clearly defined responsibilities, faster responses to emerging harms and the inclusion of teachers in decisions about the technology being introduced into classrooms.
