An Egyptian rights group launched a petition calling for legislation to regulate generative artificial intelligence tools, warning they are being used to create deepfakes and facilitate digital violence against women.
The initiative, announced Wednesday by the Edraak Foundation for Development and Equality, comes amid what activists describe as a surge in manipulated images and videos, including cases involving women, girls and female celebrities.
The petition seeks to gather support for binding legal measures governing the use of such technologies. “This pushed us to sound the alarm early and call on decision-makers in Egypt to begin considering binding legislation to govern the use of these tools and protect women from digital violence,” the foundation’s digital advocacy officer, Somayya Magdy, told Al Manassa.
According to the petition, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models now offer tools that can produce and circulate manipulated personal images, including digitally stripping individuals, altering images, and impersonating identities without adequate safety or accountability standards. The petition cited incidents involving the Grok model on X.
Magdy told Al Manassa that the risks associated with models such as Grok stem from the absence of an ethical framework, unlike other AI systems such as ChatGPT, which block requests to generate nude images of women or children.
The petition calls for “urgent and decisive legislative and regulatory action against generative AI platforms that enable the ‘undressing’ of images and the creation and distribution of fabricated sexual or degrading content,” the feminist NGO said in a Facebook post earlier this month.
More than 20 NGOs and over 30 professionals and activists have signed the petition.
On March 17, three plaintiffs including two minors filed a lawsuit in federal court in California against Grok, the AI chatbot developed by xAI, owned by billionaire Elon Musk. The lawsuit accuses the model of generating sexually explicit and abusive images of teenage girls by applying deepfake techniques to real photos.
“We want to raise awareness of their dangers and create a real dialogue, at the same pace at which AI language models are evolving globally,” Magdy said.
Egypt’s National Generative AI Guidelines, issued in March under the National Council for Artificial Intelligence, chaired by Minister of Communications and Information Technology Raafat Hindi, point to the government’s commitment to “shaping a trusted, forward-looking, and responsible AI ecosystem.”
The non-binding advisory framework describes the risks associated with deepfakes as “significant,” and warns of their potential harm to individuals. It stipulates “special protection” for minors and vulnerable people against the non-consensual use of a person’s likeness, voice, or facial movements, including realistic lip‑synchronization.
A 2021 study by UN Women found that 60% of female internet users in the Arab region experienced online violence that year.
In February 2025, Egyptian feminist platform Speak Up announced it had joined Pornhub’s Trusted Flagger program to help flag and remove non‑consensual videos from the adult site based on reports received through its helpline.
Magdy suggested amendments to the Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law No. 175 of 2018, either to criminalize the existence of such tools, not just their use, or to introduce regulatory measures for review by decision-makers and parliament.
“We will hold sessions with experts to develop the most appropriate form of the proposed law,” she said.
