The UK government has tabled amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill that could see senior executives at porn companies face prison sentences if they fail to remove intimate images shared without consent. The measures are designed to crack down on the abuse of women and girls online.
Under the proposed law, senior managers would be criminally liable if their platforms do not comply with Ofcom's orders to remove non-consensual images without a reasonable excuse. The amendments also criminalise pornography depicting incest and adults roleplaying as children.
Home Office Minister Jess Phillips said tech firms and abusers have 'carried on making money while women pay the price', as AI is used at an industrial scale to create and spread fake sexual images without consent. She wrote in the Mirror that 'the creation and sharing of these images can have devastating impact on survivors' and that 'those responsible for hosting and profiting from this vile content have avoided responsibility. That must end now.'
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall stated that 'too many women have had their lives shattered by having their intimate images shared online without consent' and that 'protecting women and girls online is not optional, it is a responsibility that sits squarely with every tech company’s leadership.'
The new offences include possession or publication of content showing incest between family members, and sex between step or foster relations where one person is pretending to be under 18. Publication of pornography where an adult roleplays as a child carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.
