“I stopped talking about this months ago because I’d already said what I needed to. But that doesn’t mean it stopped,” said Salmond.

Posting to social media, Salmond shared some of the explicit AI images that had been created, alongside her original photos.

“After seeing people suggest I made this whole thing up – while literally watching new deepfakes of me still being created, I realised something.

“Most people don’t actually understand what a deepfake is, or how common they’ve become. Especially when it comes to explicit ones made of real people,” said Salmond.

“So, it left me thinking, how can we educate boys, protect girls, and prepare parents, if no one actually knows that they’re up against?”

“You can’t solve a problem you don’t even see. So, I’m going to share a few censored versions of the deepfakes that were created using my photos.”

In an earlier social media post, Salmond suggested a motive for the deepfakes.

“You don’t make deepfakes of women you overlook. You make them of women you can’t control”.

Speaking to the Herald in May, Salmond said “these videos are created because the woman is seen as someone who owns her body, exudes confidence, and doesn’t shrink herself”.

Among the deepfake content that has surfaced since she spoke out earlier this year was a doctored version of a photo that she’d posted with a newspaper article about her condemning deepfakes.

“The moment I truly knew I was right, that this was always about power, was when they deepfaked that photo.

“It was retaliation. There was nothing sexual about that photo. But it was symbolic, and the only power move they had left,” said Salmond.

While it’s unclear where the deepfake imagery originated from, New Zealand could soon be in a position to prosecute deepfake creators.

Act MP Laura McClure’s Bill to criminalise sexually explicit “deepfake” images will be read in parliament.

If passed, the Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill will amend existing laws to expand the definition of an “intimate visual recording”.

It will widen what a “recording” is to include images or videos that are created, synthesised or altered to depict a person’s likeness in intimate contexts without their consent.