The head of an elite garda unit specialising in cyber crime has criticised the lack of effective age verification on online sites where sexualised images can be accessed, as gardaí appeal for victims of the recent 'nudification' trend to come forward. Investigators have insisted that the sexualisation of unsuspecting people on the social media platform X is being treated "with the utmost seriousness”. An AI tool, known as Grok, embedded in the social media platform X, has allowed users to create thousands of sexualised images of women and children, by "undressing people" from real photographs. Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said the Government and regulator had failed to take on the social media companies. "Last year, edit features were added to Grok to make it easy to undress people in photographs," she said.

Source: Irish Examiner January 14, 2026 10:00 UTC