How an AI fake turned a volleyball team photo into a Canterbury school’s worst nightmare

Monday, 22 June 2026

School leaders say the rise of AI deepfakes and online abuse is creating new challenges for schools, students and staff. (Stock image)

School leaders say their staff and students are increasingly vulnerable to online abuse, from disgruntled parents to unknown creators of AI deepfake nudes and threats of blackmail - but feel powerless to prevent it. CATE MACINTOSH reports.

It was a typical high school sports team photo, taken by a parent and proudly posted on the school’s website.

The photo of about 10 Rangiora High School senior girls volleyball team members was manipulated using AI nudify tools to depict the 17 and 18-year-olds in a sexualised way.

The image soon began circulating on students’ phones and computers.

Principal Bruce Kearney said the incident, which happened in 2024, was “one of the worst” he had ever experienced in his decades-long career in education.

The victims and their parents were distraught and angry.

“It was terrible. They felt objectified and powerless. And … one of the normal reactions is that they want to see consequences for the person that did that.”

A team member’s mother, who took the photo, “felt terrible”, Kearney said.

The school did its own investigation and reported the incident to police, but the person who made and shared the photo was never found, Kearney said.

Many students who received the photo - a group of junior male and female students - were interviewed by the school, but it led nowhere.

This increased the victims’ distress, Kearney said.

Rangiora High School principal Bruce Kearney says schools are struggling to protect students from the growing threat of AI-generated image abuse.

“We had tears, we had anger, we had ‘the school’s not doing anything about it’ because we’re not punishing anybody … they went through every justifiable emotion because they were feeling really hurt.”

Wanting someone to blame, many in the school community accused “two to three” students despite there being no evidence, Kearney said. Those students were harassed and nearly left the school as a result.

Kearney is blunt about the ability of schools to prevent or mitigate such abuse.

“I don’t know if we can protect people against this.

“You used to have to be quite good at computers to do this sort of stuff. Now you just have to tell AI to do it, so it will happen.”

University of Canterbury senior law professor Dr Cassandra Mudgway said creating and sharing “deep nudes” was a crime under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, provided the perpetrator could be identified and intent to cause harm proven.

Another bill going through Parliament - the Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill - will criminalise making, sharing or selling sexually explicit deepfakes without consent.

University of Canterbury senior law professor, Dr Cassandra Mudgway says education about image-based sexual abuse and misogyny in schools is needed to address the rise in AI deep nudes.

But identifying the creator of an AI deepfake can be difficult, as there are many ways to remain anonymous.

“It gets shared by a third party who didn’t have any knowledge or use of the tool that made it, and it’s forever tagged or associated with the victim survivor, even though it is not them, it’s AI generated.”

Mudgway said while the new legislation was an important first step, it did not address the ease of access to the tools, the scale of the harm, or how individuals and organisations could prevent it.

Because imaged-based sexual abuse mostly targeted girls and women, education about consent and misogyny in schools was necessary, she said.

Victims of AI deepfake abuse are often left dealing with the emotional fallout long after the images are shared. (Stock image)

School leaders say the challenges posed by AI are part of a broader problem of online harm.

Principals The Press spoke to said schools were regularly subjected to online abuse and unsubstantiated allegations on community Facebook pages, with little ability to respond.

Kearney said his staff have “banned” him from looking at community social media pages.

“They said, ‘you’re not allowed to go on and have a look, because you’ll get too upset.’”

Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows says she is concerned about her staff being named in a post about alleged bullying on social media.

Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows took matters into her own hands recently after a parent claimed on social media that her 8-year-old son was assaulted by another student and his teacher, who she named, did nothing about it.

Burrows responded to the post, apologising and asking the parent to get in touch. But she also made it clear there was a better way to address the issue.

“The school has a complaints policy and it assists when whānau follow that process so we can work to put things right.”

Burrows told The Press the issue had been resolved and the post was taken down, but she wanted to address the wider problem of inappropriate social media use by parents.

In a lengthy post on the school’s Facebook page she acknowledged “a small minority of ākonga (students) choose to bully others”, and the school had zero tolerance for bullying.

“Haeata did not teach these ākonga to bully, sadly these ākonga arrived at kura with those skills,” she wrote.

Whangaparāoa College Principal and chairperson of the Post Primary Teachers Association’s principals’ council Steve McCracken says schools want stronger laws and enforcement over online harm.

Burrows said she was particularly upset the parent “named and shamed” the boy’s teacher.

“Our staff have a right to privacy and protection and … the next step will be one of our staff may be assaulted on their way to or from work.

“It’s hard enough to attract really high-quality staff into the east.”

She wanted administrators of community pages to “shut those conversations down”.

Post Primary Teachers Association principals’ council chairperson Steve McCracken said schools across the country were increasingly being misrepresented on social media.

Netsafe chief safety officer Sean Lyons says schools should not be blamed when malicious actors misuse AI deepfake technology.

The Whangaparāoa College principal encouraged parents to “pick up the phone” and keep communication open with their school.

The growing misuse of generative AI, including students threatening to create and share AI deepfakes as blackmail to “get their own way” during disputes with teachers or schools, was a huge concern for principals, McCracken said.

“We’re left quite exposed and vulnerable in some cases.”

Schools wanted stronger laws and better enforcement to ensure social media was properly regulated and staff protected, he said.

Last month, The Guardian reported experts had advised schools in the United Kingdom to remove pictures of students’ faces from their websites and social media to protect against image-based sexual abuse.

It followed a case where criminals used AI deepfake tools to turn images from a high school website into child sexual abuse material, then blackmailed the school by threatening to publish the images.

Online not-for-profit safety organisation Netsafe is contracted by the Ministry of Education to support schools experiencing incidents of online harm, advice and guidance, and teaching resources.

Chief safety officer Sean Lyons said the organisation received about 3000 inquiries from schools about specific incidents or general queries over the last two years. He could not say how many incidents involved AI deepfakes.

Lyons said he was aware of the UK case, but warned the experts’ response risked blaming schools for harm caused by malicious users of AI deepfakes.

“Do we just live in a world that doesn’t have pictures of anybody … that feels quite ridiculous.”

While there were ways to manage photos, such as blurring faces, it was not Netsafe’s role to tell schools how to use images, Lyons said.