The Creation of AI Generated Intimate Images without consent will now be a criminal offence

In light of the fast paced developments of Artificial Intelligence, it is clear the law has to develop also.

Since AI has become so popular, many have used this tool to generate sexually explicit deepfakes (a video or image of a person has been digitally changed so they appear in a different way). This issue has primarily been images of women where within 53% of images containing individuals in minimal clothing, 81% of those were women with 2% being under 18 years old.

The government has created legislation within the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 for England and Wales, to ban any creation, or request of the creation, of any images that may be sexually explicit (‘purported intimate image’). This legislation will criminalize any images created without any consent. However, this legislation has not yet been brought into force and therefore, it is difficult to see how successful this legislation may be to reduce the likelihood of this issue. It is set for the legislation within the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 are expected to come into force on the 5 February 2026.