Teen sues ClothOff developer over fake nude images made with clothes removal tool

[midian182]

What just happened? A teenage girl is suing the maker of a "clothes removal" tool after it was used by a classmate to create at least one fake nude of her when she was 14. The lawsuit, which also names Telegram as a defendant, is the latest in a series of legal actions taken against the makers of undressing websites and apps.

The now 17-year-old from New Jersey was one of several girls at Westfield High School who discovered a student had used photos from their social media accounts to create AI-generated nude images two years ago. Some male classmates shared the fakes in group chats, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Now, a Yale Law School professor, his students, and a trial attorney have filed a lawsuit on behalf of the teen against AI/Robotics Venture Strategy3, developer of ClothOff – the web tool allegedly used to create the images.

Also named as a "nominal defendant" in the lawsuit is Telegram; ClothOff could be accessed on the messaging app via bots.

AI/Robotics Venture Strategy3 is based in the British Virgin Islands and is believed to be operated by residents of Belarus.

The plaintiff says that the creation of these images constitute CSAM, but the developer claims processing images of minors is impossible and attempting to do so will lead to an account ban. The developer also says it does not save any data.

The plaintiff has requested that a judge order AI/Robotics Venture Strategy3 to delete and destroy all nude images it possesses of adults and children who didn't provide consent, to refrain from using the images to train its AI models, and to remove both the website and the ClothOff tool.

In 2024, The Guardian carried out an investigation into ClothOff, which at the time had more than 4 million visitors per month. The publication reported that the app had been used to generate nude images of children around the world.

A Telegram spokesperson said clothes-removing tools and non-consensual pornography are a violation of its terms of service and removed when discovered. ClothOff has now been removed from the platform.

The teen boy who created the fake nudes isn't named in the suit but is being sued separately by the plaintiff. It's alleged that he used an image of the girl in a swimsuit to create the nude. The girl says she lives in "constant fear" that the faked image of her is on the internet, and that images of her and her classmates are being used to train ClothOff's AI to improve its image-generation capabilities.

The problem of using AI to create nude images of people without their consent goes back to before the generative AI revolution. A deepfake bot on Telegram was found to have made over 100,000 faked naked photos of women based on social media images in 2020.

90% of online traffic to a nudify app originates from Meta advertising. It's incredibly problematic and creates new victims of deepfake intimate imagery.

I just told Mark Zuckerberg: it's time to step up.

– Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) February 11, 2025

In 2024, 16 undressing websites were sued by San Francisco Attorney's office. More recently, Meta sued the maker of the Crush AI nudify app in June after 8,000 ads appeared on its platforms in just two weeks.

This is a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that alleges the website owners and operators violate CA and federal laws prohibiting deepfake pornography, revenge pornography, and child pornography.

– David Chiu (@DavidChiu) August 15, 2024

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Teen sues ClothOff developer over fake nude images made with clothes removal tool

 

[VitalyT]

This was way back from 2000 movie Miss Congeniality.

They predicted it

 

[unoficialoficial]

The problem for many women is that they become overly attached to their outward appearance, to the point where they conflate their identity and personality with how they look. While this can also occur among men, it seems especially pervasive among women. Laws safeguard an individual’s right to personal dignity and privacy—rights that are distinct from one’s exterior appearance, a biological characteristic shared by all humans. Consequently, when a woman (or a man) is in a public space, she does not have the right to demand that others refrain from looking at their body—an instance of common human anatomy. Observing a person’s anatomy does not interfere with their personality and therefore does not constitute illegal conduct such as csam.

If the law were to prioritize fear over rights, we would not achieve a desirable outcome.

 

[redgarl]

The problem for many women is that they become overly attached to their outward appearance, to the point where they conflate their identity and personality with how they look. While this can also occur among men, it seems especially pervasive among women. Laws safeguard an individual’s right to personal dignity and privacy—rights that are distinct from one’s exterior appearance, a biological characteristic shared by all humans. Consequently, when a woman (or a man) is in a public space, she does not have the right to demand that others refrain from looking at their body—an instance of common human anatomy. Observing a person’s anatomy does not interfere with their personality and therefore does not constitute illegal conduct such as csam.

If the law were to prioritize fear over rights, we would not achieve a desirable outcome.

ROFL... dude... posting nudes of fake or true people that are minors is literally a crime...

Not to mention that behaviors that you describe in public can be categorized as sexual misconducts.

Get informed before posting such garbage.

 

[pnntmp]

LOL ... creative money-chasing has no bounds.

I can use Notepad to create a really nasty pornographic text about someone.
Or I can use Photoshop to replace the face in a pornographic image with another face.
Or I can use pretty much any software to create something someone might not like.

Has anyone ever sued Microsoft or Adobe or any other company for a misuse of the software tools they provide?
Has anyone ever sued a knife manufacturer because a knife was used to stab someone instead of slicing bread?
What kind of idiocy is that?

 

[axiomatic13]

The problem for many women is that they become overly attached to their outward appearance, to the point where they conflate their identity and personality with how they look. While this can also occur among men, it seems especially pervasive among women. Laws safeguard an individual’s right to personal dignity and privacy—rights that are distinct from one’s exterior appearance, a biological characteristic shared by all humans. Consequently, when a woman (or a man) is in a public space, she does not have the right to demand that others refrain from looking at their body—an instance of common human anatomy. Observing a person’s anatomy does not interfere with their personality and therefore does not constitute illegal conduct such as csam.

If the law were to prioritize fear over rights, we would not achieve a desirable outcome.

What in the creeper are you talking about?

 

[SoftFox]

LOL ... creative money-chasing has no bounds.

I can use Notepad to create a really nasty pornographic text about someone.
Or I can use Photoshop to replace the face in a pornographic image with another face.
Or I can use pretty much any software to create something someone might not like.

Has anyone ever sued Microsoft or Adobe or any other company for a misuse of the software tools they provide?
Has anyone ever sued a knife manufacturer because a knife was used to stab someone instead of slicing bread?
What kind of idiocy is that?

Yep, not done much research on that have you ?

Taking/making fake nude pictures of somebody aged 14 is sexual abuse of children, not to mention even for adults its very dubious as its non consensual pornography. A lot of countries are getting serious about passing legislation against this.

Would you be more outraged with this if it was your wife or child deep faked posted online ?

 

[pnntmp]

Yep, not done much research on that have you ?

Taking/making fake nude pictures of somebody aged 14 is sexual abuse of children, not to mention even for adults its very dubious as its non consensual pornography. A lot of countries are getting serious about passing legislation against this.

Would you be more outraged with this if it was your wife or child deep faked posted online ?

Of course making fake nude pictures of somebody aged 14 is sexual abuse of children. I don't remember saying it's not.
The question is, who's the abuser?

If you use Notepad to write something abusive or untrue, who's to blame? Is it you, or Notepad? I think it's you.
If you stab me with a knife, who's to blame - you, or the knife manufacturer? I think it's you.

It's exactly the same in this case. The one using the tool to harm another person is to blame. Not the tool. Not the one who created the tool. A tool is just a tool.

 

[human7]

Of course making fake nude pictures of somebody aged 14 is sexual abuse of children. I don't remember saying it's not.
The question is, who's the abuser?

If you use Notepad to write something abusive or untrue, who's to blame? Is it you, or Notepad? I think it's you.
If you stab me with a knife, who's to blame - you, or the knife manufacturer? I think it's you.

It's exactly the same in this case. The one using the tool to harm another person is to blame. Not the tool. Not the one who created the tool. A tool is just a tool.

Unlike Notepad, the whole point of this tool is nefarious. To say the tool (or its developers) are not at fault would be to say that a developer of malware or the malware itself is not at fault if somebody else used that malware to infiltrate a system.

 

[Ashford]

Of course making fake nude pictures of somebody aged 14 is sexual abuse of children. I don't remember saying it's not.
The question is, who's the abuser?

If you use Notepad to write something abusive or untrue, who's to blame? Is it you, or Notepad? I think it's you.
If you stab me with a knife, who's to blame - you, or the knife manufacturer? I think it's you.

It's exactly the same in this case. The one using the tool to harm another person is to blame. Not the tool. Not the one who created the tool. A tool is just a tool.

This is the likely outcome imho, otherwise Smith & Wesson and every camera manufacturer would be bankrupt.

 

[SoftFox]

Of course making fake nude pictures of somebody aged 14 is sexual abuse of children. I don't remember saying it's not.
The question is, who's the abuser?

If you use Notepad to write something abusive or untrue, who's to blame? Is it you, or Notepad? I think it's you.
If you stab me with a knife, who's to blame - you, or the knife manufacturer? I think it's you.

It's exactly the same in this case. The one using the tool to harm another person is to blame. Not the tool. Not the one who created the tool. A tool is just a tool.

You've stripped out the context of my quote

'Has anyone ever sued Microsoft or Adobe or any other company for a misuse of the software tools they provide?'

The answer to the above is yes with some googling. An App that 'de-clothes' people is by its nature on dubious grounds and open to litigation. Even adults are entitled to protection from 'non consensual pornography' as I commented

 

[NyaAgain]

It seems unlikely to me that nudify software is going away. So, let's nudify 100% of everyone, get over it, and move on with life knowing that this is always going to be a thing now. I don't like it, but, like scams, this seems like it's just going to get worse and worse forever, and the fight against it will produce nothing.

 

[Xelions]

Here we go again. Tackle the root of the problem. If a person creates, then distributes the image - deal with the person and exact a consequence. What is wrong with society today is we allow the source of the issue to remain untouched. Personally I don't give a fu#$ about the software itself.

PS. To all those fools thinking AI bought this around... Fakes have been around for a long time! Celebrities come to mind.

 

[Win7User]

Well, she's going to have to pose nude, to prove her lawsuit! She can do that next year, when she turns 18.

 

[MasterAce]

It seems unlikely to me that nudify software is going away. So, let's nudify 100% of everyone, get over it, and move on with life knowing that this is always going to be a thing now. I don't like it, but, like scams, this seems like it's just going to get worse and worse forever, and the fight against it will produce nothing.

Yeah nothing to stop people from putting their new AI computers to good use. These sort of data sets are certainly going to circulate, that enable generic AI software to produce risque content locally.

 

[jeffbert]

What a naughty discussion!