On November 3–4, 2026, RMIT University publicised results from a Google-funded research program led by Professor Nicola Henry. It produced three peer-reviewed studies from one dataset: a survey of 7,230 adults in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, conducted in July and August 2024. The victimisation paper, "'That Experience Still Haunts Me to This Day': A Multi-Region Survey on AI-Generated Image-Based Sexual Abuse Victimization," was published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction on September 8, 2026, according to Sci.News. The promotion this week is what brought it to wide attention.

Why It Matters

**This gives lawmakers a population-level baseline.** The bills we've been tracking (Queensland's [creation offence](/stories/queensland-deepfake-creation-offence-bill), Scotland's inquiry and Ireland's Labour bill due for Dáil debate on November 5 ([*Isles of Consent*](/stories/scotland-ireland-ai-intimate-image-laws)), Denmark's [likeness-copyright bill](/stories/denmark-deepfake-likeness-bill)) have mostly relied on celebrity cases and individual victims' accounts. A three-country survey showing that roughly 7% of adults are affected, with the UK highest, gives them prevalence data. The sextortion finding also matters for platforms: threats to share are nearly as common as actual sharing, and most of it comes from online-only contacts. That argues for detection at the messaging and payments level, which is where the [400-app cloaked nudify network](/stories/apple-google-nudify-apps-ttp-report) was operating. **Caveats.** The fieldwork is from mid-2024, before the current wave of nudify apps, so today's rate is probably higher, as Henry herself suggests. Google funded the research. This is self-reported survey data. Sci.News and SMBtech both reported it from the same RMIT release, and we have not reviewed the full papers.

The headline number: 7% of respondents, about one in 14, said they had experienced at least one form of AI-generated image-based sexual abuse since turning 18. That breaks down into an intimate image created without consent (4.3%), shared without consent (4.4%) or a threat to share one (3.6%), the last a common sextortion tactic. When all digital manipulation is counted, not only AI, the figure rises to 15.1%. By country, rates were 9.3% in the UK, 7.7% in Australia and 6.5% in the US (Sci.News; SMBtech). Victimisation was higher among people under 35, LGBTQ+ respondents, people of colour and people with disabilities.

The gender pattern is unexpected. Men reported victimisation at more than twice the rate of women (10.2% vs 3.8%; 2.28 times as likely after controlling for demographics), but women reported much more severe effects. 42.4% of women said they feared for their safety, against 18.1% of men. Overall, 86.7% of victims reported at least one negative impact on their lives. The researchers suggest that among men these images are sometimes used as peer "pranks" or to assert dominance, and that some apparently female perpetrators may be scammers posing as women. 55.6% of victims said the perpetrator was someone they knew only online. "We now have evidence of how widely AI-generated image-based abuse is affecting people across the community, not just celebrities and public figures," Henry said.

Sources

Update — 2026-11-04

Initial entry — story first created.