Intranet photos of soldiers, military and defense ministry officials have been made unavailable over concerns they could be abused to make sexually abusive deepfake images, officials said Sunday.

Such photos were made invisible from the military's Onnara System intranet and the websites of military units as of Thursday last week, military officials said.

Only those with due authority can access such photos.

"There was the possibility of the photos being abused for sex crimes because individual photos can be accessed and downloaded," a defense ministry official said. "It is not known whether the intranet photos were abused for deepfakes, but we made them unavailable to prevent that." (Yonhap)