Minister for AI and Online Safety (): Non-consensual intimate
image abuse can have devastating and long-lasting impacts on
victims and disproportionately affects women and girls.
Delivering stronger protections against this harm is a key
Government priority. The Prime Minister committed earlier this
year to strengthen protections for victims and ensure platforms
take a more proactive role tackling this horrendous abuse.
Today marks a further important step in strengthening protections
online, as I lay before Parliament an amendment to Ofcom's Codes
of Practice for the illegal content duties, bringing in
hash-matching to strengthen protections against non-consensual
intimate image abuse.
The Online Safety Act puts a range of duties on social media
companies and search services, making them responsible for their
users' safety on their platforms. These include duties to put in
place systems and processes for tackling illegal content and
activity. Ofcom, as the independent regulator for this regime, is
required to set out steps in codes of practice that providers
should take to ensure they fulfil these duties.
Ofcom issued its first Codes of Practice for the illegal content
duties following Parliamentary scrutiny, which came into force in
March 2025. These Codes introduced a framework of measures
requiring services to take a proactive, systems-based approach to
tackling illegal harms.
This amendment introduces a targeted additional measure to
strengthen protections against non-consensual intimate image
abuse. It sets a clear legal expectation that relevant services
use perceptual hash-matching technologies, or demonstrably
equivalent tools, to identify and prevent the re-uploading and
circulation of known non-consensual intimate images, including
intimate image deepfakes. In practice, this will require services
at risk of hosting such content to deploy proactive detection
systems capable of preventing repeat uploads at scale, rather
than relying on case-by-case takedown following user reports.
This approach meaningfully supports victims and ensures that once
content is identified, it is effectively prevented from
reappearing.
Ofcom has now submitted an amendment to its Codes of Practice for
the illegal content duties. I am laying this before Parliament
for scrutiny. If neither House objects to the amendment, Ofcom
must issue the amended Codes, and the updated measures will apply
from 21 calendar days after they are issued.
Once in force, these updated measures will further strengthen the
existing framework, ensuring that service providers put in place
effective systems and processes to prevent the spread of illegal
intimate image abuse content, including through the use of
proactive technologies.
The amendment represents a further step in implementing the
Online Safety Act and strengthening protections for users,
particularly in tackling some of the most harmful forms of online
abuse against women and girls. Ofcom will continue to build on
this framework and keep its Codes under review to address
emerging harms.
