Cases involving sexual deepfakes targeting children more than doubled in number in Japan in the first half of 2026, the National Police Agency has said.
Police handled 123 such cases in the six months, exceeding both the 60 recorded a year earlier and the 114 logged in all of 2025, the agency said Monday.
The surge highlights the rapid spread of generative AI and its increasingly sophisticated image-editing capabilities.
Junior high school students accounted for 79 victims, followed by 38 high school students, three elementary school pupils and three others whose backgrounds could not be determined.
In 83 cases, the suspected perpetrators were classmates or students attending the same school as the victims. Seven cases involved people who had met the victims through social media or other online platforms.
Police also identified four cases in which children unknown to the suspects were secretly photographed in public before their images were altered into sexually explicit content.
Two suspects had been referred to prosecutors by the end of June, while investigations into other cases remain under way.
The agency said it will step up public awareness campaigns on the illegal use of AI while pursuing criminal investigations into egregious cases and cracking down on such offenses.