More than 250 British celebrities are among the thousands of famous people who are victims of deepfake pornography, an investigation has found.

A Channel 4 News analysis of the five most visited deepfake websites found almost 4,000 famous individuals were listed, of whom 255 were British.

They include female actors, TV stars, musicians and YouTubers, who have not been named, whose faces were superimposed on to pornographic material using artificial intelligence.

The investigation found that the five sites received 100m views in the space of three months.

The Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, who was found to be among the victims, said: “It feels like a violation. It just feels really sinister that someone out there who’s put this together, I can’t see them, and they can see this kind of imaginary version of me, this fake version of me.”

Since 31 January under the Online Safety Act, sharing such imagery without consent is illegal in the UK, but the creation of the content is not. The legislation was passed in response to the proliferation of deepfake pornography being […]