Tackling digital exploitation of women and girls

A Westminster Hall debate on Tackling digital exploitation of women and girls will take place on Tuesday 27 January at 4:30pm. The debate will be led by Sir Mark Hendrick MP.

CrimeInternet and cybercrime

Last fetched 22 May 2026 · commonslibrary.parliament.uk

Briefing

As UN Women has noted, the digital revolution has exacerbated existing forms of gender-based violence (such as sexual harassment, stalking, hate speech, misinformation, defamation, and impersonation). It has also created new forms of abuse (such as video and image-based abuse including deepfakes, doxing, cyberbullying, and online grooming).

A recent example of the digital abuse of women and children has been the use of Grok (an AI assistant and chatbot developed by xAI) to generate non-consensual sexualised images of women and child sex abuse material.

On 12 January 2026, Ofcom announced an investigation into X using its powers under the Online Safety Act 2023. Ofcom's investigation remains ongoing even though X has said that it has implemented measures to prevent Grok being used to create intimate images.

Criminal offences relating to intimate images

The current criminal law on sharing (or threatening to share) intimate images is set out in section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which provides for the following offences:

intentionally sharing a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, without that person’s consent or a reasonable belief in their consent (subsection 66B(1), maximum custodial sentence of six months)
intentionally sharing a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, without that person’s consent and with the intention of causing that person alarm, distress or humiliation (subsection 66B(2), maximum custodial sentence of two years)
intentionally sharing a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, without that person’s consent or a reasonable belief in their consent and where the perpetrator has the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification for themselves or another (subsection 66B(3), maximum custodial sentence of two years)
threatening to share a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, either with the intention that the other person (or someone who knows them) fears that the threat will be carried out or being reckless as to such fear (subsection 66B(4), maximum custodial sentence of two years)

Section 66B was added to the 2003 act by the Online Safety Act 2023 and took effect in January 2024. Crown Prosecution Service legal guidance on communications offences includes details of the section 66B offences.

On 12 January 2026, in a statement to the House of Commons, Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, said that the government would bring section 138 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 into force. This will add new provisions to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to make it a criminal offence to create or request the creation of non-consensual intimate images. The offences will come into force on 6 February 2026 (Lords PQ13244, answered 19 January 2026).

For background on the development of section 138, see section 10.10 of the Library briefing Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL] and section 2.4 of the Library briefing Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]: progress of the bill.

Upcoming measures to tackle AI child sexual abuse images and 'nudification' apps

In a PQ response of 22 December 2025, the government explained forthcoming measures to tackle AI-generated child sexual abuse material and the use of 'nudification' apps:

The Government announced in the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy that we will ban nudification apps and other tools designed to create synthetic non-consensual intimate images (NCII) to stop women and girls’ images being tampered with and exploited without their consent.

This Government is also introducing specific measures within the Crime and Policing Bill to tackle AI driven child sexual abuse. These include:

Criminalising AI models that have been developed to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM). These optimised models produce hyper-realistic indecent images that often contains the likeness of real children. This offence will carry a sentence of up to five years
Updating the existing law criminalising ‘paedophile manuals’ to cover AI as well. Manuals which provide guidance on how to use AI to create CSAM will be punishable by up to three years in prison.
A new criminal offence to target moderators and administrators who run sites dedicated to child sexual abuse, including where these horrific images are created or advice is shared using AI. These crimes will now carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
A further amendment to empower authorised bodies- including AI developers and child protection organisations- to scrutinise AI systems to help improve safeguards and prevent them generating harmful content in the first place.

Further details are set out in the gov.uk press releases New law to tackle AI child abuse images at source as reports more than double (12 November 2025) and Protecting young people online at the heart of new VAWG strategy (18 December 2025).

Tackling digital exploitation of women and girls

A Westminster Hall debate on Tackling digital exploitation of women and girls will take place on Tuesday 27 January at 4:30pm. The debate will be led by Sir Mark Hendrick MP.

CrimeInternet and cybercrime

Last fetched 22 May 2026 · commonslibrary.parliament.uk

Briefing

Criminal offences relating to intimate images

The current criminal law on sharing (or threatening to share) intimate images is set out in section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which provides for the following offences:

intentionally sharing a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, without that person’s consent or a reasonable belief in their consent (subsection 66B(1), maximum custodial sentence of six months)
intentionally sharing a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, without that person’s consent and with the intention of causing that person alarm, distress or humiliation (subsection 66B(2), maximum custodial sentence of two years)
intentionally sharing a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, without that person’s consent or a reasonable belief in their consent and where the perpetrator has the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification for themselves or another (subsection 66B(3), maximum custodial sentence of two years)
threatening to share a photograph or film which shows (or appears to show) another person in an intimate state, either with the intention that the other person (or someone who knows them) fears that the threat will be carried out or being reckless as to such fear (subsection 66B(4), maximum custodial sentence of two years)

Upcoming measures to tackle AI child sexual abuse images and 'nudification' apps

In a PQ response of 22 December 2025, the government explained forthcoming measures to tackle AI-generated child sexual abuse material and the use of 'nudification' apps:

This Government is also introducing specific measures within the Crime and Policing Bill to tackle AI driven child sexual abuse. These include:

Criminalising AI models that have been developed to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM). These optimised models produce hyper-realistic indecent images that often contains the likeness of real children. This offence will carry a sentence of up to five years
Updating the existing law criminalising ‘paedophile manuals’ to cover AI as well. Manuals which provide guidance on how to use AI to create CSAM will be punishable by up to three years in prison.
A new criminal offence to target moderators and administrators who run sites dedicated to child sexual abuse, including where these horrific images are created or advice is shared using AI. These crimes will now carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
A further amendment to empower authorised bodies- including AI developers and child protection organisations- to scrutinise AI systems to help improve safeguards and prevent them generating harmful content in the first place.