An Austrian MEP has gone public about being "stripped naked" online without her consent, urging the EU to act - a request that would seem self-evident, except that a new report finds one in six female MEPs has been targeted by sexualised AI-generated content. So, apparently, we needed a study.

Lena Schilling of the Green party discovered last month that nude deepfakes of herself were circulating online. Clicking the links, she found images from one of her first-ever press conferences - except her clothing had been digitally removed. "I felt disgusted," she said. "I remember how nervous I was and how much I had prepared for the press conference. And then to see someone using this image in a way aimed at harming and humiliating me was really hard to grasp." A defining career moment, repurposed as harassment. Efficient, if nothing else.

Schilling is one of 50 MEPs - 46 of them women - targeted by sexualised deepfakes, according to a report by Agora Digitale Transformation (ADT). The Berlin-based thinktank, which alerted Schilling to the images, said the finding laid bare how deepfake pornography has become a "systemic threat to women in European politics." An earlier ADT report found 138 female parliamentarians from 22 EU countries had been affected - and that women were 33 times more likely than male colleagues to be depicted in or associated with deepfake pornography. Thirty-three times. One struggles to call that a rounding error.

Schilling described the images as "digital violence against women," piled atop the already disproportionate sexist abuse, harassment and violence women in politics face. The result, she said, is a potent threat to democracy: "These things make going into politics even harder than it is already. Just imagine what would happen to our society if more and more women disappear from public life."

She said she had spoken with other targeted female MEPs who feared coming forward. "But there's nothing to be ashamed of. People misused your photos, you did nothing wrong," she said. "And I think that's the moment when you say: 'OK, this has to stop.'"

That sentiment made it to paper in a letter initiated by Schilling and German Green MEP Terry Reintke, signed by 119 MEPs. It calls on officials to ensure a forthcoming ban on apps and websites that use AI to undress women - scheduled to take effect across the EU on 2 December - comes with mechanisms actually capable of enforcing it. "A ban on paper protects no one until it is enforced," the letter said, pointing to the widespread use of "nudifier" apps that undress photos of women with a single click. "Its purpose is humiliation and control over women's bodies, and its effect is to make public life more hostile for female politicians," it said. "Every young woman considering a political career now must factor in that this could happen to her."

Schilling said the goal is to push national authorities to close loopholes or workarounds that would let the apps keep functioning in the EU. "We were stripped naked without our consent," she said. "This cannot become the new normal." A modest proposal, that.

Speaking up, she said, was meant to convince member states to crack down on tech companies for which this sort of digital violence could be a viable business model. "It's quite simple," she said. "Every woman who wants to run for office should be able to do so without being afraid of being undressed against her will." Simple, yes. Enforced, apparently, is the harder part.