By Maggine Macintosh | Winnipeg Free Press
One year after AI-generated nudes of underage students from Winnipeg sparked a Canada-wide conversation about sexual violence in the age of artificial intelligence, the school division at the centre of the scandal has come up with a new protocol.
The Louis Riel School Division released guidelines for teachers and other staff members working in classrooms in St. Boniface, St. Vital and surrounding communities last week.
“Regrettably, as technology has evolved in recent years, staff have been placed in situations where they have come into possession of an electronic copy of an intimate image, without soliciting it,” chief superintendent Christian Michalik wrote in the Jan. 15 memo.
In working with the Winnipeg Police Service, the school division leaders have learned about the importance of having a formal process in place to address future incidents, Michalik said.
WPS began investigating reports of deep fakes — realistic images and recordings generated using AI tools — involving teenage suspects and victims from Collège Béliveau, a Grade 7-12 school in Windsor Park, in December 2023.
The pornographic content was created using social media posts that were screenshotted to produce sexually explicit photos of their peers.
At the time, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s information technology director categorized the doctored images in question as “child sexual abuse material.”
“In a lot of cases, I don’t think (perpetrators) understand the gravity of what they’re doing,” Lloyd Richardson told the Free Press as a police probe got underway.
The altered images were uploaded to Cybertip’s Project Arachnid, an online tool run by Winnipeg-based Canadian Centre for Child Protection to detect child sex abuse material and send removal notices internationally.
No criminal charges were laid against the teenage boys accused of creating and sharing the falsified photos.
Following the incident, Manitoba’s NDP government passed legislation to expand the definition of intimate images to include those altered by electronic means.
The Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images Act now provides a pathway for victims of both fake and real revenge porn to seek damages.
The federal Liberals announced last month they were splitting an online harms bill in two to speed up the passage of new measures to protect children online and crack down on deepfakes and internet pornography in general.
Michalik briefed the Louis Riel division workforce on current laws related to intimate images and spelled out related expectations in his mass email.
He asked staff members to write down when, from whom and by what means they receive any inappropriate images or videos. Recipients should then describe the content and report it to their supervisor or principal.
“Never forward the image,” he wrote in bolded font, “as doing so would be in violation of section 162.1(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada.”
Employees who are subjected to troubling material can seek support via their employee and family assistance program, Michalik added.
“It’s interesting to see the position that they’ve taken on never forwarding the image, even in the situation of reporting. I don’t think that it’s right or wrong. It’s a particularly hard line that they’ve taken,” said Katie Szilagyi, an assistant professor who studies AI, privacy and the law at the University of Manitoba.
Szilagyi noted no one can be convicted of a crime related to forwarding an intimate image if they do so to “serve the public good,” the Criminal Code notes.
She applauded the school division for introducing a relatively uncommon protocol, given early case law continues to develop.
It’s a “good idea” to have a standardized approach to responding to these issues, she said.
She added she is supportive of a growing shift to describe incidents as examples of “the non-consensual distribution of intimate images” rather than “revenge porn” — a loaded term.
The local teachers’ union was not involved in drafting the protocol, but its president welcomed the new directive reminding members not to mistakenly expand the digital footprint of an intimate image.
President Jay McGurran said the local chapter of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society is appreciative that the employer is being “proactive and responsive” to protect its approximately 2,000 employees.
