The first guest invited to ring the bell to open trading at the New York Stock Exchange in 1956 wasn’t a company executive, a politician or a celebrity. It was a 10-year-old boy, Leonard Ross, who received the honor by winning a television quiz show. Since then, business titans, political giants and global film stars have all been among those ringing the opening bell at the NYSE. Ronald Reagan rang the bell as president in 1985. Billionaire businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hollywood star Robert Downey Jr. have also rung the bell. The list even includes famous Muppets: Miss Piggy was once a bell ringer. President-elect Donald Trump joined that list Thursday when he opened trading at the famous stock exchange on Wall Street. He was accompanied by his wife, Melania, who interestingly enough received the honor before her husband. As first lady, she rang the bell in 2019 as part of her “Be Best” program. Bell-ringers are more commonly founders and executives chosen primarily from the exchange's more than 2,300 listed companies. Over the last few months, the guests have included executives from Alaska Air Group, Bath & Body Works, and Ally Financial. Stock trading around the location of the NYSE's current home has deep roots that trace back to the Dutch founding of New Amsterdam and when Wall Street had an actual wall. The NYSE traces its direct roots to the “Buttonwood Agreement” signed in 1792, which set rules for stock trading and commissions. The NYSE moved into its first permanent home in 1865. The first bell in use was actually a gong. The exchange moved into its current iconic building in 1903 and started using an electronically operated brass bell. That has evolved into synchronized bells in each of the NYSE’s four trading areas.MISSISSAUGA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 10, 2024-- VIQ Solutions Inc. (“ VIQ ”, “ VIQ Solutions ” or the “ Company ”) (TSX: VQS), a global provider of secure, AI-driven, digital voice and video capture technology and transcription services, today announces the retirement of Susan Sumner as Chief Operating Officer and President of the Company. Ms. Sumner will continue as a part-time advisor to the Company until January 31, 2025. In connection with her retirement, Ms. Sumner has informed the Company that she will resign from her director position on the board of directors of the Company (the “ Board ”) as of January 31, 2025. Ms. Sumner has served as Chief Operating Officer of VIQ since July 2018, President of VIQ since February 2021, and has been a member of the Board since April 2022. Sebastien Pare, Chief Executive Officer and Director of VIQ stated: “It has been an honor and a privilege to have worked with Susan over the last number of years. Over the years, Susan has offered a lot of time, effort and encouragement while performing her roles at the Company and has been part of moving VIQ forward throughout her time with us. All of us at VIQ thank Susan for her contributions to our success over the years.” For more information about VIQ, please visit viqsolutions.com . About VIQ Solutions VIQ Solutions is a global provider of secure, AI-driven, digital voice and video capture technology and transcription services. VIQ offers a seamless, comprehensive solution suite that delivers intelligent automation, enhanced with human review, to drive transformation in the way content is captured, secured, and repurposed into actionable information. The cyber-secure, AI technology and services platform are implemented in the most rigid security environments including criminal justice, legal, insurance, government, corporate finance, media, and transcription service provider markets, enabling them to improve the quality and accessibility of evidence, to easily identify predictive insights and to achieve digital transformation faster and at a lower cost. Forward-looking Statements Certain statements included in this press release constitute forward-looking statements or forward-looking information (collectively, “forward-looking statements”) under applicable securities legislation. Such forward- looking statements or information are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Forward-looking statements (typically contain statements with words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "plan", "intend", "estimate", "propose", "project" or similar words, including negatives thereof, suggesting future outcomes or that certain events or conditions “may” or “will” occur). These statements are only predictions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include but are not limited to statements with respect to finding a replacement for Susan Sumner. Forward-looking statements are based on several factors and assumptions which have been used to develop such statements, but which may prove to be incorrect. Although VIQ believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements because VIQ can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date of this press release, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to the factors described in greater detail in the “Risk Factors” section of the Company’s annual information form and in the Company’s other materials filed on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca . These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company; however, these factors should be considered carefully. Such estimates and assumptions may prove to be incorrect or overstated. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and the Company expressly disclaims any obligations to update or alter such statements, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. View source version on businesswire.com : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241210682802/en/ CONTACT: Jacob Manning VIQ Solutions Email:marketing@viqsolutions.com KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CANADA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES SECURITY DATA MANAGEMENT LEGAL OTHER COMMUNICATIONS PUBLISHING TECHNOLOGY AUDIO/VIDEO CONSULTING ADVERTISING COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE NETWORKS SOURCE: VIQ Solutions Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2024. PUB: 12/10/2024 05:30 PM/DISC: 12/10/2024 05:30 PM http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241210682802/en
Published 4:09 pm Sunday, December 29, 2024 By Associated Press By The Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023 , spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said. “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family. Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. “My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. As reaction poured in Sunday from around the world, former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary were among those praising Carter for a life devoted to helping others. “Hillary and I mourn the passing of President Jimmy Carter and give thanks for his long, good life. Guided by his faith, President Carter lived to serve others — until the very end,” Clinton said, praising Carter for a commitment to civil rights, protecting natural resources, securing peace between Egypt and Israel, and other accomplishments. The son of the late Martin Luther King Jr., meanwhile, called Carter a “fighter who punched above his weight.” In a statement, Martin Luther King III added that “while history may have been hard on President Carter at times, today, he is remembered as a global human rights leader.” A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon. Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy. Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders. Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights. “I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.” That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiating cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring U.S. elections as well. Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors . He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010. “I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said. He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered U.S. administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump. Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added. Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done. “The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.” Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where they lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral. The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously. His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners . He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China. “I am not nominating Jimmy Carter for a place on Mount Rushmore,” Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s domestic policy director, wrote in a 2018 book. “He was not a great president” but also not the “hapless and weak” caricature voters rejected in 1980, Eizenstat said. Rather, Carter was “good and productive” and “delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.” Madeleine Albright, a national security staffer for Carter and Clinton’s secretary of state, wrote in Eizenstat’s forward that Carter was “consequential and successful” and expressed hope that “perceptions will continue to evolve” about his presidency. “Our country was lucky to have him as our leader,” said Albright, who died in 2022. Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries. “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press. James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly Black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career. Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his Black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian , would become a staple of his political campaigns. Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career. Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband. Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office — he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions — but this time, she was on board. “My wife is much more political,” Carter told the AP in 2021. He won a state Senate seat in 1962 but wasn’t long for the General Assembly and its back-slapping, deal-cutting ways. He ran for governor in 1966 — losing to arch-segregationist Lester Maddox — and then immediately focused on the next campaign. Carter had spoken out against church segregation as a Baptist deacon and opposed racist “Dixiecrats” as a state senator. Yet as a local school board leader in the 1950s he had not pushed to end school segregation even after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, despite his private support for integration. And in 1970, Carter ran for governor again as the more conservative Democrat against Carl Sanders, a wealthy businessman Carter mocked as “Cufflinks Carl.” Sanders never forgave him for anonymous, race-baiting flyers, which Carter disavowed. Ultimately, Carter won his races by attracting both Black voters and culturally conservative whites. Once in office, he was more direct. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he declared in his 1971 inaugural address, setting a new standard for Southern governors that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. His statehouse initiatives included environmental protection, boosting rural education and overhauling antiquated executive branch structures. He proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the slain civil rights leader’s home state. And he decided, as he received presidential candidates in 1972, that they were no more talented than he was. In 1974, he ran Democrats’ national campaign arm. Then he declared his own candidacy for 1976. An Atlanta newspaper responded with the headline: “Jimmy Who?” The Carters and a “Peanut Brigade” of family members and Georgia supporters camped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, establishing both states as presidential proving grounds. His first Senate endorsement: a young first-termer from Delaware named Joe Biden. Yet it was Carter’s ability to navigate America’s complex racial and rural politics that cemented the nomination. He swept the Deep South that November, the last Democrat to do so, as many white Southerners shifted to Republicans in response to civil rights initiatives. A self-declared “born-again Christian,” Carter drew snickers by referring to Scripture in a Playboy magazine interview, saying he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The remarks gave Ford a new foothold and television comedians pounced — including NBC’s new “Saturday Night Live” show. But voters weary of cynicism in politics found it endearing. Carter chose Minnesota Sen. Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate on a “Grits and Fritz” ticket. In office, he elevated the vice presidency and the first lady’s office. Mondale’s governing partnership was a model for influential successors Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden. Rosalynn Carter was one of the most involved presidential spouses in history, welcomed into Cabinet meetings and huddles with lawmakers and top aides. The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief.” They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school. Washington’s social and media elite scorned their style. But the larger concern was that “he hated politics,” according to Eizenstat, leaving him nowhere to turn politically once economic turmoil and foreign policy challenges took their toll. Carter partially deregulated the airline, railroad and trucking industries and established the departments of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres of Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges. He appointed a then-record number of women and nonwhite people to federal posts. He never had a Supreme Court nomination, but he elevated civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the nation’s second highest court, positioning her for a promotion in 1993. He appointed Paul Volker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose policies would help the economy boom in the 1980s — after Carter left office. He built on Nixon’s opening with China, and though he tolerated autocrats in Asia, pushed Latin America from dictatorships to democracy. But he couldn’t immediately tame inflation or the related energy crisis. And then came Iran. After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt. The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions and order a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Hoping to instill optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech, although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence.” By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves. Carter campaigned sparingly for reelection because of the hostage crisis, instead sending Rosalynn as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged him for the Democratic nomination. Carter famously said he’d “kick his ass,” but was hobbled by Kennedy as Reagan rallied a broad coalition with “make America great again” appeals and asking voters whether they were “better off than you were four years ago.” Reagan further capitalized on Carter’s lecturing tone, eviscerating him in their lone fall debate with the quip: “There you go again.” Carter lost all but six states and Republicans rolled to a new Senate majority. Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free. At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.” Four decades after launching The Carter Center, he still talked of unfinished business. “I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Carter told the AP in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.” Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life. “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015 . “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.”
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He has your nudes. She got the message by text from a girl she barely knew: Your friend, he has your photos on his phone. How could that be, the 16-year-old Toronto high school student remembers thinking. The boy with the photos was a close friend, someone she trusted. And besides, she thought, she had never sent a nude to anyone. “I was like, ‘What? That’s not possible,’” the girl said. Her mind drifted to the worst-case scenario — “Has someone taken photos of me while I was asleep?” In late January of this year, a group of teens between the ages of 15 and 17 went to Toronto police to report what they thought was a crime. A boy they knew had made naked pictures of all of them — his classmates, friends and girls he only knew through social media. Using artificial intelligence tools, he put their faces onto someone else’s naked body, creating explicit “deepfake” porn of them without their consent, essentially out of thin air. To the girls and their parents, the act should have been illegal. However, in a move that illustrates a growing dilemma facing investigators and lawmakers tasked with handling the exploding world of AI technology, Toronto police disagreed. The girls gave statements at the station. Nearly a month later, investigators called them back to explain the situation in a PowerPoint presentation, saying there were gaps in legislation to address the deepfake images and insufficient evidence to prove the photos were distributed. There would be no charges. The legalities surrounding AI-generated deepfakes are murky in Canadian law, particularly in Ontario. Are deepfakes illegal to possess? Are they child pornography if depicting a minor? Is your image legally yours if it’s been attached to someone else’s body? What’s known as deepfake porn involves superimposing a person’s face on someone else’s naked body in a realistic way. In the past, creating fakes would require the use of Photoshop and a relatively high degree of skill — but developments in AI have made it so anyone can generate convincing nude photos with just a few clicks. “Nowadays, you don’t need any tech skills at all,” said Kaitlynn Mendes, a sociologist at Western University who researches “technology-facilitated gender-based violence,” which includes deepfakes. Modern AI tools are so good that users can even create convincing videos without much effort. You can to watch him go about your mundane tasks. You can as he walks out to his adoring fans. Or, you can create realistic porn featuring . Deepfake porn involving minors falls into a “grey area” of Canada’s laws around consent, revenge porn and child exploitation, said Suzie Dunn, an assistant law professor at Dalhousie University whose research centres on deepfakes. Although deepfake porn isn’t clearly defined as illegal in the Criminal Code, the provision for child pornography could apply, Dunn said. It considers material child pornography, “whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means.” There is also a provision that makes it an offence to share explicit images of another person without their consent. However, on a plain reading of the law, Dunn said that only includes authentic nude images of someone. Regulations often lag behind technological advances, Toronto police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said in a statement. In the girls’ situation, investigators from the Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit worked closely with a specialized ICE Crown attorney, Sayer said, “dedicating extensive time to the investigation and to explaining the legal challenges that can arise in prosecuting such cases.” The Star interviewed five female high school students who were portrayed in explicit deepfakes and has agreed not to name them — nor their parents — because they are minors, as is the boy they accuse of creating the images. As they tell it, the girls learned about the photos one weekend in late January. During a co-ed slumber party, a separate group of teens came across the nude pictures while scrolling on the boy’s cellphone. They were looking for the selfies they had previously taken on his device. One of them video-recorded the photos as evidence and, with help from her friends, managed to identify every girl depicted in the images. They contacted each one immediately. I didn’t know how to tell my mom. What was I supposed to say? As the girls’ phones blew up with texts and calls, gossip about their faked nudes spread like wildfire, and the boy accused of making them started shifting the blame. “I just started panicking,” said one girl, who was 15 and halfway through her Grade 10 year at the time. “I didn’t know how to tell my mom. What was I supposed to say?” Unlike the others, who were either friends or acquaintances of the boy, this teen had never spoken to him. “I had zero connection,” she said. Another girl said a bikini picture she posted to Instagram was turned into a nude that looked “disgustingly real.” After, she wished she never saw it. “Looking at the picture makes me uncomfortable.” For the 16-year-old who confronted the boy, her former friend, the most upsetting realization was that he manipulated selfies of her face that she had sent him when she was as young as 13. “The images he got were from the girls’ Instagrams. But then the images he used for me were (non-explicit) images I had sent him on Snapchat,” she said. The day she learned about the images, she asked two male friends to accompany her to the boy’s house to confront him. When they arrived, a police car was out front, and an officer was inside — “Someone else had already called the police,” the girl said. The boy’s father let her in, but not her friends. She said the officer and the boy’s parents had no idea multiple girls were involved. The parents made their son apologize despite the boy denying he was responsible. The cop allegedly told the girl: “You don’t need to worry, the pictures have been wiped,” she recalled. The experience was “super surreal,” she said. “I was crying in his living room on his couch, begging him to tell me the truth.” That weekend, she and about 12 other girls went to police. They feared the boy shared the doctored photos or posted them online. “Are these everywhere?” the 16-year-old remembers thinking. “Do people have these?” The ordeal left some girls feeling humiliated and violated, causing their mental health and school work to suffer at a time when most were writing exams. “It was hard to focus because of all the chatter,” one said. Are these everywhere? ... Do people have these? Another, the boy’s former friend, stayed in her room for days after learning about the pictures and skipped out on dance class. “I didn’t want to be surrounded by mirrors after seeing ‘myself’ like that,” she said. There were various layers to the girls’ case that made it unclear if deepfake images would be considered illegal. According to them and their parents who listened to the police presentation, a key question was: did the boy share the deepfakes with anyone else? When the investigator told them there was no proof of distribution and the boy made the photos for “private use,” some of the girls said the accused had shown the pictures to a few other boys they knew. (It’s unclear if police interviewed the boys. According to the girls, investigators told them the boys came forward only after they were asked to, and that they could have been pressured into saying what the girls wanted police to hear.) Dunn suggested that police would have wrestled with whether or not the so-called private use exception would apply. In general, the law protects minors who create explicit photos of themselves or their partner for private use, but do not share them with anyone else. I didn’t want to be surrounded by mirrors after seeing ‘myself’ like that In the context of deepfakes, Dunn said an analogy would be if a teen boy cut out a picture of a young girl and placed it onto the face of a Playboy magazine photograph. Whether the private use exception to deepfake porn would hold up in court, to Dunn’s knowledge, it “has never been tested.” Using AI models to produce sexual material is a “very different” scenario, she added, noting companies that own the AI applications could store images in their databases. Would that be captured under “private use,” Dunn questioned, even if the person who made the photos didn’t show them to anyone? To one parent, the girls’ situation felt like a “test case” — an opportunity for investigators to apply the criminal code and set an example for other police jurisdictions dealing with similar matters. Toronto criminal defence lawyer William Jaksa has represented two clients who were subject to police investigations into AI-generated child pornography, one of whom had his charges dropped because there was no reasonable prospect of conviction. After learning from the Star about the case involving the girls, Jaksa commended Toronto police for what sounded like a thorough investigation, saying they took the extra step of consulting a Crown attorney before making a decision. “They could have very easily just laid the charges and let the Crown sort it out later,” he said. “But the reputational damage will have already been done to the kid, and that will always appear somewhere on his Toronto police record.” Mendes, the sociologist at Western, noted that not everyone wants charges laid in situations like this, especially if the accused is a classmate or peer. “Often, people just want the images taken down.” She also said many victims wouldn’t necessarily end up using the law as a resource because it’s expensive, time-consuming and complicated. Regardless, she and Dunn agreed criminal law should cover deepfakes to establish what is and isn’t acceptable. “It’s people understanding their rights, even if they don’t pursue a criminal or a civil case,” said Mendes, who is also Canada’s research chair in inequality and gender. “That sets an important message to society that, ‘Hey, this isn’t cool.’” A week or two after the girls went to police, they returned to the station individually to give full statements. Then, in mid-February, they were called back for a presentation on why police would not lay charges. The outcome left the girls feeling dismissed, disappointed and angry. One mother said it was yet another reminder of why women and girls often don’t report when they’re sexually assaulted, abused, or, in this case, the subject of non-consensual explicit material. “These girls are thinking, ‘We’ve done the right thing in reporting it, and nothing is going to happen,’” she said. Another parent felt as though police “minimized” the harm caused to her daughter when being interviewed by police. She said the detective told the teen that the images were not actually of her — to which her daughter replied: “Yeah, but everyone thinks they are me,” she said. Later, during the presentation, the parent said the general attitude from police in the room was “easy, breezy, casual. ‘You guys will move on from this.’” While Sayer said she couldn’t speak to specifics about the case, she emphasized the care investigators put into ensuring victims feel safe and supported — such as by offering the support of a victim services worker. “While gaps in the law can make it difficult to lay charges in some circumstances, this in no way diminishes the trauma experienced by victims,” she said. The five female students who spoke to the Star attended two high schools under the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). At one school, the girls said they were grateful for the swift support, including exemptions from exams and access to counselling services. At the other school, where the accused also attended, the students and their parents expressed disappointment with the response, suggesting administration prioritized the school’s reputation and legal concerns over their safety. During a meeting with the principal about the incident, one girl said she felt as if she was being told: “Why don’t you think of his feelings instead?” The boy was suspended, the teens and parents said, but only after mounting pressure, and the school was going to allow him to return. In the end, they said the boy chose not to come back and later transferred to a new school. In a statement, TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said the school “took immediate steps to address the very serious allegations” on the day officials became aware of them. He declined to elaborate on what those steps were, citing “privacy reasons.” “Understanding how difficult this must be for the impacted students, the administration checked in with them and their families on a number of occasions and offered a number of supports,” the statement said. Bird said the school board initially opened an investigation into the matter but halted its inquiry at the request of Toronto police while they carried out their own probe. When police closed their investigation, the board followed suit. The only positive outcome the students and their families said they saw from the school was new language added to its student code of conduct: that students must not possess or be responsible for “the creation or distribution of inappropriate or illegal images,” including pornographic images generated by AI. Nationally, experts and observers have sounded the alarm that Canada needs to better protect victims of deepfakes, especially as the issue is expected to worsen. When , the world’s biggest pop star, , there was outrage and legal threats. The pictures were removed from X, and lawmakers everywhere started paying attention. The Toronto case is a far less public example. Ontario and the territories are the only regions in Canada without intimate image laws that either address deepfakes explicitly or provide protections against “altered” or “fake” photos — which experts said could be applied to deepfakes. (Quebec was .) Other legislation, such as the recently introduced Online Harms Act, takes aim at social media companies for sharing and amplifying harmful content on their platforms. The federal bill requires them to remove material that sexually victimizes a child if intimate content is posted without their consent, including deepfakes. There are additional civil options to address deepfakes, too, including laws related to defamation, privacy and copyright. Though pursuing criminal charges isn’t as promising of an avenue for victims, there have been at least two known cases in Canada where a person was convicted of child pornography for making deepfakes. In April 2023, for using AI to make synthetic videos of child pornography. Earlier this year, of creating and possessing child porn, including an image of a teen girl that he manipulated into a deepfake nude. Police seized 150 photos of children that they suspected the pastor planned to run through the “nudify” application. In both cases, the photos had been shared with the girls themselves or distributed on a larger network — elements that couldn’t be proven in the Toronto case. In interviews with the five girls, a recurring theme emerged: they don’t want other young women to experience what they did. While the gossip at school has subsided, the emotional and psychological toll lingers. Some have turned to therapy to help them cope. “Until recently, I would think about it constantly,” said the teen who described her deepfake as hyper-realistic. She previously loved posting on social media but no longer feels she can enjoy it as much. It can “make you so vulnerable to anybody on the internet.” At school, she said students are taught to be careful online because of adults with nefarious intentions. But, the teen asked, how come no one ever talks about people their own age? “People following your account already can be the predator. Not some grown man on a fake account.”