HW Legal
By now, just about everyone has noticed how fast, and at times how wild, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has been. Some of us, unfortunately, have also seen the darker side of this AI revolution: the way fraudsters and others with bad intentions put these game-changing tools to use. In photo and video editing especially, AI has spread so widely that even the lawmakers have now decided to punish its misuse. This article looks at more than just the amendment to the Criminal Code that toughens the penalties for creating and distributing harmful deepfake content.
A new offence, Section 191a: Misuse of identity to produce and share pornography
Since 1 January 2026, an entirely new set of rules in the Czech Republic makes deepfakes a crime outright. Act No. 270/2025 Coll. added two key provisions to the Criminal Code:
Section 191a of the Criminal Code, Misuse of identity to produce and share pornography
Whoever produces, imports, exports, transports, offers, makes publicly available, brokers, puts into circulation, sells, or otherwise procures for another a photographic, film, computer, electronic, or other
- pornographic work
- that depicts or otherwise uses a person who, as the offender knows, has not consented to being depicted or used in that way,
- shall be punished by up to two years' imprisonment, a ban on a given activity, or forfeiture of property.
The offence covers creating, offering, sharing, or making available a pornographic work (including a deepfake) where the offender knows the person concerned never gave consent. Sharing material that you don't know is an illegal deepfake is therefore not a crime. Where significant harm is caused, or where someone acts as part of an organised group or spreads the material over the internet, the maximum sentence rises to three years. In the most serious cases, such as large-scale harm, an international criminal group, or an aim of making a large profit, it can reach five years. The offence applies both to artificially created footage and to real footage shared without consent.
Harming another's rights, now extended to deepfakes
Section 181(2) of the Criminal Code, Harming another's rights
The offence has been extended with a new subsection (2):
(2) The same punishment (note: up to two years' imprisonment or a ban on a given activity) shall apply to anyone who,
- intending to cause another serious harm to their rights, produces a work that without authorisation depicts, captures, or otherwise uses another person's likeness or their expressions of a personal nature in a way that appears genuine,
- even though they know it is not,
- or who makes such a work publicly available, brokers it, puts it into circulation, sells it, or otherwise procures it for another.
This covers non-pornographic deepfakes created or shared with the intent of causing someone serious harm, for example defamation, fraud, the loss of a job, or blackmail.
Civil law: protecting your personal rights against deepfakes
Alongside protection under criminal law, the law also gives you civil remedies. Sections 81 to 89 of the Civil Code protect the individual person, and their likeness and privacy in particular. The law expressly protects your reputation, your honour, your privacy, and your expressions of a personal nature, in other words both your image and your voice.
Using your face to generate a deepfake video without your consent is, in and of itself, an interference with your rights. In civil proceedings you can require whoever created or shared it to stop interfering with your rights any further and to undo the consequences. It may also be worth claiming an apology, or compensation for non-material harm, which can be paid in money.
Do you think your identity has been misused to make fake videos or photos? We can help you enforce your rights effectively and recover the harm done. Put our experience in criminal law, the protection of personal rights, and damages claims to work for you.