Women sue Chula Vista, former employee for alleged AI pornographic images
Five women are accusing a former Cyber Security Network Specialist with the city of Chula Vista’s Police Department of taking photos of them and using AI to alter them into pornographic images.
The complaint filed earlier this week also accuses the city of Chula Vista of negligence, claiming the city failed to implement proper safeguards to prevent this from happening.
Morgan Stewart is one of the attorneys representing the five women, ages 24 to 39, who filed the complaint.
“It is a complaint predicated on his employment with the city, specifically with the police department, and his creation of pornographic images of his coworkers through Departmental access,” Stewart said.
According to Stewart, hard copies of the images were found on Morgan’s desk, which led to an investigation.
He said the investigation found that more photos had been made of his female colleagues.
“You expect and anticipate that somebody in a role with a city department, with the police department and police department, is going to be held to a higher standard,” Stewart said.
The complaint accuses the City of Chula Vista of negligence for not supervising Morgan and alleges he stalked his colleagues on social media to obtain access to their photos.
“This was going on during city time and using city resources,” Stewart said.
Stewart said that although the investigation revealed Morgan used the images for his own purposes, it remains unclear for how long Morgan had been manipulating the images, raising concerns among the victims about the extent to which he may have shared them.
“They have significant concern about the impact this could have on their lives, their careers, their other employment opportunities,” Stewart said.
Stewart said prior to filing the complaint, his office gave the city of Chula Vista an opportunity to address the concern, but they refused.
NBC 7 reached out to the City of Chula Vista, but a spokesperson for the city said they cannot comment on pending litigation.
Nikolas Behar is a Cybersecurity expert and professor at the University of San Diego.
He said smartphones have given people access to AI tools, making it easier for them to manipulate images, which he said introduces a new kind of threat workplaces didn’t have to think about five years ago.
“It’s really, really hard now, because when folks engage in these types of activities, on personal devices, those are personal devices, so employers aren’t going to have access to those devices and folks can go and get images from social media,” Nikolas Behar, cybersecurity expert and professor at USD, said.
An alleged activity that attorney Stewart said has left him no longer employed by the police department.
Attorney Stewart said his victims hope the suit will help uncover what kind of vetting is done during the city’s hiring process and what access to information employees are given.
