On October 27, 2026, Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington introduced a bill making it a crime to create non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfake images or audio. Until now the state's criminal code only covered distributing intimate images and threatening to distribute them. Frecklington told parliament offenders had been "exploit[ing] a gap in the law" by making material they never shared. The proposed maximum penalty is three years' jail for adults and 18 months for children.

Why It Matters

For the intimacy-tech and adult-AI sector, an offence for **creating** sexual deepfakes, not just sharing them, matters more than another sharing ban. It puts liability on the act a generative tool performs. That increases the pressure on any app that can produce realistic nude or sexual images or voices of real people from an uploaded photo or clip, and on the app stores and payment providers that carry those apps. Including **audio** is a first worth watching: voice-clone "companion" and erotic-audio products that let users upload a real person's voice now sit directly in scope. The Yeates sentence points to the enforcement problem. Prosecutors can now win the charge, but sentencing remains lenient. Watch whether the Queensland bill passes unchanged and whether other states copy the audio provision.

The bill changes two definitions. It adds a definition of intimate audio material, so voice clones are covered and not just images. It also updates the definition of an intimate image to include "non-genuine" images. According to the ABC, the aim is to stop perpetrators arguing that an image doesn't count because the victim is shown in an impossible setting, or because emojis or a digital filter cover part of it. Frecklington pointed to the recent conviction of Antonio Rotondo, who made and distributed sexualised deepfakes of current and former Brisbane school students and staff. She said he could not be punished for creating the images, only for distributing them. She also said schools were "on the frontline" and cited support from Emma Mason, whose daughter Tilly died after bullying that included fake nude images.

The same day, an ABC report from Adelaide marked the national milestone. William Hamish Yeates, 20, the first person charged in Australia under the federal deepfake-pornography laws, was sentenced for creating sexually explicit deepfakes of a teenage girl and sharing them on EroMe and X in 2024–25. He received two years and three months, but was released on a recognisance order on condition of good behaviour after the judge found he had no "malicious motive." That outcome is likely to fuel the argument that the laws are only as strong as their sentencing.

Queensland is adding to a growing set of laws. Federal law already covers sharing sexual deepfakes, and Queensland now wants an offence for making them, including voice. That is the same move from distribution to creation that we've seen in Denmark's likeness-copyright bill and the EU's planned ban on nudification apps.

Sources

Update — 2026-10-27

Initial entry — story first created.