Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to bring requesting and creating non-consensual intimate images into the scope of the image-based abuse offences in sections 66E and 66F of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

It is an offence to create, or request the creation of, a purported (or ‘deepfake’) intimate image of an adult without their consent or reasonable belief in their consent, under Sections 66E and 66F of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Under sections 44 to 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007, it is an offence to assist or encourage the commission of another offence, including offences of taking or recording, or sharing, an intimate image without consent or reasonable belief in consent.

The Government is committed to halving violence against women and girls, including online and image-based abuse, within a decade. Sections 66B to 66H of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 provide a range of offences for tackling intimate image abuse, with new offences being inserted by the Crime and Policing Act 2026. As part of our VAWG action plan we will be launching a call for evidence to better understand online misogynistic image-based abuse and the extent to which there are new harms and behaviour which may not be fully captured by existing criminal offences.