Jess Asato, a Labour member of Parliament, filed a claim in England's High Court against xAI, the company behind the Grok AI platform, over nonconsensual sexual deepfake images generated of her in early January 2026.
AWO, the law firm representing Asato, said the High Court filing targets alleged violations of data protection law and the tortious misuse of private information. Among the remedies she is pursuing are financial damages, a judicial finding that the conduct was unlawful, and an injunction compelling xAI to cease ongoing violations and introduce safeguards against future abuse.
After Asato publicly condemned Grok in January, fabricated content began circulating that included images of her in a bikini and a video depicting her "being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault," according to Reuters.
"Grok created deepfake pornography and sexualised content which harmed thousands of women and children," Asato said in a statement. "Its ability is not an accident, nor misuse, it is a design choice by its creators. In launching this case, I am pursuing accountability for those choices."
Ravi Naik, legal director of AWO and Asato's lead solicitor, framed the suit as a test case for AI developer liability. "This is one of the first claims to test liability for the design of an AI system, and we hope it will make it clear to AI developers that safety cannot be an afterthought," Naik said in a statement.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed Asato's legal action on Thursday, calling the images "disgusting" and saying he was "100% behind the action that she has taken," according to Sky News. xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit is one of several legal challenges xAI faces over Grok's image-generation capabilities. Around mid-January, xAI announced changes that limited Grok's image-editing features and prohibited the generation of images showing people in revealing clothing wherever such depictions are against the law. Despite a subsequent company-wide ban on nudification features, AWO cited testing by NBC News indicating that Grok's capacity to produce sexual deepfakes persisted even after the restrictions were put in place. It has since become illegal in the U.K. to create or request a nonconsensual deepfake image of an adult.
Grok's deepfake capabilities have drawn legal scrutiny beyond the U.K. Baltimore brought a lawsuit against xAI in March, with the city arguing that Grok's capacity to generate fabricated sexualized imagery ran afoul of its consumer protection statute. A separate class action filed in March by three Tennessee teenagers alleged that xAI's Grok model was used through a licensed third-party app to produce child sexual abuse material depicting them. Regulators in multiple countries have also opened probes into Grok, according to Reuters.
Asato called on others in the U.K. whose images were manipulated by Grok in an "abusive or demeaning way" to come forward and support the legal claim.