The UK government has announced that it intends to crack down on explicit deepfakes. It will introduce new offences covering both creating and sharing deepfake images. This reflects the government’s manifesto commitment to ban the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes as well as recommendations from the Law Commission relating to intimate images.
The government will also create new offences for the taking of intimate images without consent and the installation of equipment with intent to commit these offences.
It is already an offence to share, or threaten to share, an intimate image without consent, but it is only an offence to take an image without consent in certain circumstances, such as upskirting.
Under the new offences, anyone who takes an intimate image without consent faces up to two years’ custody. Jail sentences of up to two years will also apply to those who install equipment so that they, or someone else, can take intimate images without consent. Alongside existing offences of sharing intimate images without consent, this aims to give law enforcement a holistic package of offences aimed at effectively tackling non-consensual intimate image abuse.
The new offences follow the government’s adding sharing intimate image offences as priority offences under the Online Safety Act. This means platforms must find and remove this type of content or face enforcement action from Ofcom.
The new offences will be included in the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill, which will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.
The sexually explicit deepfakes offences will apply to images of adults. This is because the law already covers this behaviour where the image is of a child (under the age of 18). It is already an offence to share or threaten to share intimate images, including deepfakes, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, following amendments that were made by the Online Safety Act 2023.
The Government will repeal two existing voyeurism offences that relate to the recording of a person doing a private act, and recording an image beneath a person’s clothing. They will be replaced with a range of new offences:
- Taking or recording an intimate photograph or film without consent or reasonable belief in it
- Taking or recording an intimate photograph or film without consent and with intent to cause alarm, distress, or humiliation
- Taking or recording an intimate photograph or film without consent or reasonable belief in it, and for the purpose of the sexual gratification of oneself or another.
As mentioned above, there will also be new offences that criminalise someone if they install or adapt, prepare or maintain equipment, and do so with the intent of enabling themselves or another to commit one of the three offences of taking an intimate image without consent.
