VAWG: Online Safety Act to crackdown on intimate image abuse

Sharing intimate images without consent will be made a ‘priority offence’ under the Online Safety Act.

Under the new law, tech firms will be forced to clamp down on the sharing of non-consensual intimate images on their platforms as part of a drive to tackle online sexual offending. This means they will have to take steps to proactively remove this material, as well as prevent it from appearing in the first place. Those that fail to do so could face fines.

The changes are part of the government’s commitment to ensure new and existing technologies are safely developed and help keep people safer online. This is particularly aimed at women and girls as more than one in three women have experienced abuse online.

The move is intended to help tackle sexual offending and the normalisation of misogynistic material online as part of the government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade.

Technology secretary Peter Kyle said: "The rise in intimate image abuse online is utterly intolerable. As well as being devastating for victims these crimes have also contributed to the creation of a misogynistic culture on social media that can spread into potentially dangerous relationships offline. We must tackle these crimes from every angle, including their origins online, ensuring tech companies step up and play their part.

"That is why we will classify these vile and cowardly offences as the most severe types of crime under the Online Safety Act. Social media firms will face extra legal obligations – backed up by big fines – to uproot this content from their sites, helping to stop their normalisation and preventing generations becoming desensitised to their damaging effects."

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said: "Intimate image abuse is an appalling, invasive crime and technology companies must do much more to tackle it. We will use every tool available to achieve our unprecedented mission of halving violence against women and girls within a decade and this is an important step forward.

"The scale of violence against women and girls in all its forms is a national emergency, whether in person or online. We must overhaul every aspect of society’s response to stop this abuse from happening in the first place. Platforms must take responsibility for the content they host and we must ensure victims receive the support they deserve."