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TechInLaw Symposium

TechInLaw Symposium

Addressing Non-Consensual Deepfake Pornography and AI-Generated CSAM
April 5, 2024
Karen J. Williams Courtroom, USC Joseph F. Rice School of Law
 
3 CLE Credit Hours, Including 1 Hour for Ethics/LEPR Credit

Register Here

Symposium Archive


Agenda

Welcome Address

  • Rebecca Hiatt, Legal Technology Director / Bilingual Staff Attorney, Legal Assistance for Victims (LAV), South Carolina Victims Assistance Network (SCVAN)

Rebekah Hiatt will present on the concerns that victims have centering around technology.  Her presentation will also introduce various technologies and websites that can assist victims in documenting abuse, seeking assistance, and recovery.

Panel 1: “AI Tools That Create Non-Consensual Deepfake Pornography, Privacy Concerns and Tools to Combat Non-Consensual Deepfake Pornography and AI CSAM” (9:15 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.)

Panel discussion will include the following topics:

  • What are deepfakes and how are they created using artificial intelligence?
  • How do AI algorithms generate realistic but harmful content?
  • What technologies house deepfake and CSAM?
  • Legal and Ethical Implications:
    • Ethical considerations related to privacy, consent, and victim protection.
  • Detection and Mitigation Strategies Including:
    • Techniques for identifying deepfakes and AI-generated CSAM.
    • Developing tools and algorithms to combat their spread.

Panelists

  • Moderator – Savannah Hobbie, Class of 2025, USC Rice School of Law
  • Nathan Abernathy, Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Robert J. Bonds (CIPP)
  • Joshua Adams, Creative Director, Parent ProTech
  • Katie Brown, Associate Dean for Information Resources, Charleston School of Law
  • Sara Mays, Class of 2024, USC Rice School of Law

Panel 2 - “Current and Proposed State/Federal Legislation on AI Deepfake Pornography/CSAM and the Need for Additional Legislation” (11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.)

Panel discussion will include the following topics:

  • Current state legislation in South Carolina, as well as current federal legislation.
  • Current bills proposed in the South Carolina Statehouse and in Congress.
  • How can current federal legislation be changed/modified to address these issues?
  • How can governments, tech companies, and civil society work together to address this issue?
  • Advocacy efforts to strengthen legislation and raise awareness.

The second panel will focus initially on two bills in the South Carolina Senate  S.995 and S.996, which deal with Morphed Pornography of Identifiable Children (MPIC) and AI, respectively. There are also two companion bills in the South Carolina House - H.4972 (AI) and H.4973 (MPIC). 

2024 Commitee On Children Annual Report (PDF File - See Pages 6 and 7)

Panelists

  • Moderator – Michelle Pappas, Class of 2024, USC Rice School of Law
  • Katherine “Katie” Orville, Assistant United States Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina
  • Chase Mizzell, Engagement Manager, McKinsey & Company
  • Carrie Goldberg, Founding Attorney, C.A. Goldberg, PLLC
  • Jon Penney, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University 
  • Kyle Senn, Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General, South Carolina Office of the Attorney General

Closing Remarks

  • Michelle Dhunjishah, Director, Children's Law Center, USC Rice School of Law

Panelist Bios

Nathan Abernathy

Nathan Abernathy graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in May of 2023 and was admitted to practice in November. He currently serves as a law clerk for Circuit Judge Robert Bonds. During law school, Nathan developed a keen interest in privacy law after taking Professor David Sella-Villa’s course, Data Privacy. Nathan’s practical experience includes working at the Enterprise Privacy Office within the South Carolina Department of Administration and serving as a legal policy intern at Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC). At the PRC, Nathan contributed significantly to in-house projects on the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

He holds a Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States (CIPP/US) certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and actively participates in the IAPP South Carolina KnowledgeNet Chapter as the Young Privacy Professional representative.

Joshua Adams

Joshua is the creative director at Parent ProTech, a company dedicated to equipping the next generation to safely navigate technology. He oversees all content and curriculum used in 180+ communities across 12 states.

As a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wofford College, Joshua's professional pursuits have included work at the White House, South Carolina Governor's Office, and South Carolina House of Representatives. Most recently, he managed YouTube channels with over five million subscribers in four languages as a YouTube strategist at Elevation Church.

Kathleen (Katie) Brown is the Associate Dean for Information Resources at Charleston School of Law. Katie received her library degree from the Drexel University School.

In 2005, she completed her JD with an emphasis in intellectual property law. While in law school, Katie was a library intern at Seattle University Law School and a volunteer with Washington Lawyers for the Arts.

Brown’s research and scholarship are in the areas of intellectual property, acting skills for lawyers, law and literature, management, and a variety of legal research related topics. She has taught specialized, beginner, and advanced legal research courses and seminar and doctrinal courses on Legal Technology for Practice, Art of Advocacy, Contracts, and the research component of Legal Research and Writing. Ms. Brown has also previously served as an Adjunct Faculty member for the Meinder School of Business, Master of Science in Energy Legal Studies program in Oklahoma.

She is an active member of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). Brown has participated in a variety of leadership roles throughout the Association chapters and special interest sections. Currently she is serving as the Chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee for the 2020 AALL Annual Meeting in New Orleans. In 2011, she was honored to serve a three-year term on the AALL Executive Board.

Before her law librarianship career, Brown was an acting instructor in Chicago. Currently, in her spare time, she serves as a WFTDA certified roller derby referee.

Michelle Dhunjishah

Michelle Dhunjishah serves as the Director of the Children’s Law Center at the University of South Carolina School of Law. Prior to her joining the Children’s Law Center, she served in the United States Army JAG Corps and then spent 12 years advocating for permanency for abused and neglected children at the South Carolina Foster Care Review Board.

Michelle is licensed to practice law in North Carolina and South Carolina. She also taught legal writing to first-year students at the University of South Carolina School of Law and was recognized by the South Carolina Bar as the Young Lawyer of the Year in 2009.  She holds a J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law and a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas.

Carrie Goldberg

Carrie Goldberg is the founder of Victims’ Rights law firm C. A. Goldberg, PLLC, which does groundbreaking work nationally fighting for survivors of sexual violence and representing victims of catastrophic injuries caused by tech giants. The firm leads the nation in landmark cases challenging Section 230 immunity against big tech. As lead counsel in Herrick v. Grindr, Carrie introduced the novel legal approach of applying product liability law to dangerous tech products. The firm presently represents 12 families suing Amazon for selling a suicide poison to their children.

In November 2023, the firm’s monumental settlement in A.M. v. Omegle resulted in the platform shuttering forever. The case created new precedent in the realm of product liability and sex trafficking, the first case to overcome Section 230 where the plaintiff sued a platform for injuries caused by a malicious user. The firm overcame 230 immunity in January 2024 against Snap for its role in fentanyl deaths in Neville, et al. v Snap and is appealing to the 9th Circuit in Doe v Grindr relating to the foreseeable child rapes caused from the app marketing to children. Carrie proudly serves on the plaintiff steering committee in the multi-district litigation against Snap, Google, TikTok, and Meta regarding the platforms designing products intended to addict children.

Among the firm’s better-known clients are former Congresswoman Katie Hill and five Weinstein accusers, including Lucia Evans whose accusations helped launch the #MeToo movement and resulted in Weinstein’s arrest. Some of the firm’s proudest successes, though, are the ones that stay out of the headlines – recoveries for adult survivors of child sexual abuse and restraining orders for A-list celebrities against their stalkers. In K.M. v. City of New York, C.A. Goldberg, PLLC achieved the highest known recovery in a Title IX case in NYC.

Carrie’s well-known work for victims of nonconsensual porn is featured in the documentary Netizens and her work is profiled in The New Yorker, Elle, Cosmo, Wired, Glamour and more. Carrie is the author of “Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs & Trolls” a 2019 NYT Editor’s Choice and Paramount TV is developing a fictionalized series about Carrie and the firm. She attended Vassar College and Brooklyn Law School.

Rebekah Hiatt is the Legal Technology Director and Bilingual Staff Attorney for the South Carolina Victims Assistance Network (SCVAN). Rebekah assists with the creation and execution of victims’ rights enforcement training to victim service providers, law enforcement, and other community partners, and outreach efforts. She also assists in the coordination a pro bono and contract (low bono) attorney program. Rebekah also provides direct, holistic wraparound legal services to all crime victims including those victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, harassment, stalking, and human trafficking.

Savannah Hobbie

Savannah Hobbie is a Class of 2025 Children’s Law Concentration Student at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. Savannah is a Furman University graduate and is from Sea Girt, New Jersey, but considers South Carolina to be her forever home. She is on the executive board for the law school’s Pro Bono Program, serves as a Peer Mentor for 1L students, and is a Staff Editor for the Journal of Law and Education.

Since May of 2023, Savannah has worked at the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) division with the Attorney General’s Office as Law Clerk. From this experience, her passion for prosecuting crimes against children solidified. Recently, she completed a 45-paged Note about social media platforms contribution to the rise of Child Sexual Abuse Material and Exploitation in the United States. After graduation, Savannah hopes to become a prosecutor for ICAC to continue her mission in protecting children statewide.

Sara Mays

Sara Mays is a Class of 2024 Children’s Law Concentration Student at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. Sara is a University of Oklahoma graduate where she studied Journalism and Criminology. Sara currently serves as a 3L Student Legislative Representa􀆟ve for the Student Bar Association and is the 1L Peer Mentor Program Chair. Sara is also a member of the Children’s Advocacy Law Society, Family Law Society, Federal Bar Association, and the Women in Law Association. Sara also served as a Student Ambassador for USC Law Admissions and has worked in the USC Law Career and Professional Development Office.

Throughout her law school experience, Sara has clerked for several family, children, and criminal law entities, including the USC Division of Law Enforcement and Safety, Richland County Court Appointed Special Advocates, Federal Public Defender’s Office—District of South Carolina, Cordell & Cordell, and South Carolina Department of Social Services.

These clerkships allowed Sara to explore the intersection of criminal and children’s law. Furthermore, Sara has writen two in-depth examinations of numerous topics within the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) sphere.

Titled “The Ugly Mirror: The Dark Web Promotes Child Exploitation and Abuse,” Sara explains the relationship between various Dark Web entites and the ICAC field. Moreover, the research presents several technological resolutions that are used by law enforcement officials to mitigate the spread of CSAM, including Artificial Intelligence, Cryptocurrency, Mass Surveillance, and Hacking Mechanisms.

In addi􀆟on, Sara’s research titled “Online Child Exploita􀆟on and Sexual Abuse: A Comprehensive Overview,” provides readers with an in-depth analysis of ICAC, presents current policies that mitigate the spread of CSAM, and explores the legal hurdles that officials often face within arena. 

Chase Mizzell is currently an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, where he primarily serves federal government and southeastern state government clients across digital, operations, and strategy topics. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of South Carolina and recently completed a three year degree in moral philosophy and applied ethics at the University of Oxford, where his research focused on applied ethics, including the ethics of artificial intelligence.  Additionally, last year he conducted research and wrote a policy brief that culminated, through the work of the Children's Law Center and the Attorney General's office, in the drafting of S.995 -- the pending bill to prohibit morphed pornography of identifiable children. 

Katie Orville graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2015. During law school, she clerked for the Attorney General's Office in the Internet Crimes Against Children division. She began her career at the 14th Circuit Solicitor's Office in August 2015. While there, she prosecuted a wide array of crimes before specializing as a prosecutor for the Special Victims Unit in Colleton County. In 2020, she came to the US Attorney’s Office in the District of South Carolina where she prosecutes white collar crime, child exploitation, and human trafficking. Katie sits on the Lowcountry Financial Crimes Task Force as well as the Tri-County Human Trafficking Task Force.

Michelle Pappas

Michelle Pappas is a Class of 2024 Children’s Law Concentration Student at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. Michelle recently completed her Master of Social Work through her JD/MSW program. She is the President of the Children’s Advocacy Law Society, Vice President of the law school’s Pro Bono Program, and a Guardian ad Litem.

Michelle has learned from the Children’s Law Center for nearly two years as an MSW intern and Law Clerk, both within the Juvenile Justice Team and the Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children (Committee on Children). Michelle has taken part in the statewide Deinstitutionalization of Status Offender Task Force, attended the Fall Public hearings with the Committee on Children, and contributed to the Committee’s 2023 and 2024 annual reports covering a broad range of children’s issues. Morphed Pornography of Identifiable Children (MPIC) and Obscene Visual Depictions of Child Sexual Abuse are a couple of the recent topics which have garnered attention resulting in extensive research and proposed legislation.

Before her time in the dual program at USC, Michelle was a Program Director for a Teen Center where she coordinated daily activities for the kids, organized and ran fundraisers for the center, and encouraged and supported the Center kids in their community service work benefitting local children and their families.

Jon is a legal scholar and social scientist who joined the Faculty at Osgoode Hall Law School in July 2020. He is also presently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s Institute for Rebooting Social Media; a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society; and a long time Research Fellow at the Citizen Lab based at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, he has studied law at Columbia Law School as a Fulbright Scholar and at Oxford University as a Mackenzie King Scholar. He holds a doctorate in “Information, Communication, and the Social Sciences” from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford (Balliol College, 2016). Before joining Osgoode, he taught law at Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University and spent time as a Senior Research Fellow at the Technology and Social Change (TaSC) Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy and as a Research Affiliate of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

Jon’s research and teaching expertise lies at the intersection of law, technology, and human rights, with strong interdisciplinary and empirical dimensions. From established technologies like the internet and social media to emerging ones like artificial intelligence and machine learning, he aims to understand the legal, ethical, and human rights implications of technology and its role in public and private sector practices such as surveillance, privacy/data protection, cybersecurity, disinformation/manipulation, online abuse, and automated legal enforcement. His work has received national and international attention, including coverage in the Washington Post, Reuters International, New York Times, Newsweek, TIME Magazine, NBC News, and The Intercept among others.  Recently, his research on privacy and chilling effects was chronicled by Harvard Magazine and won the Reidenberg—Kerr Paper Award at the 2020 Privacy Law Scholars Conference at UC Berkeley Law.

Beyond research and teaching, Jon serves on Advisory Boards for the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), a non-profit whose mission is to combat online abuse that threatens civil rights and civil liberties, and the Law Commission of Ontario’s AI and Administrative Decision-Making Project. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors for The Canadian Technology Law Association and the Steering Committee for the Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI) workshop, which is co-located at the annual USENIX Security Symposium.

Kyle Senn

Kyle Senn is a Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General with the South Carolina Attorney General's Office. Kyle received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of South Carolina in 2005, and his Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2009. Since joining the Attorney General's Office in 2009, Kyle has been a prosecutor in the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) division. 

In addition to prosecuting cases, he manages the ICAC section which includes the other prosecuting attorneys, special investigators, forensic investigators and support staff, and serves as a legal advisor to law enforcement members of the SC ICAC Task Force throughout the state.  Kyle has presented training to law enforcement and prosecutors  at the SC Solicitor’s Conference, National District Attorneys Association, Child Abuse Conferences and the SC Victim’s Right Conference.


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