Deepfake intimate images of you: your rights and how to get them taken down

By Yair Cohen, Solicitor specialising in internet law. Updated 4 October 2026.

This guide is part of our pornography and adult content law section.

If someone has made a fake sexual image or video of you, with AI or by editing a real photo, this article is for you. Finding it can be a horrible shock. You may feel exposed and humiliated, and afraid that people you know have seen it, when none of this is your doing. The law is firmly on your side. Since 6 February 2026 it has been a crime to create a fake intimate image of someone without their consent, and a crime to ask someone else to make one. Sharing one, or threatening to, has been a crime since January 2024. You may feel that because the image is not real, nobody will take it seriously. We do, and so does the law. A legal letter usually gets the fake removed fast, and court is rarely needed. Once it is down, you can stop checking, stop dreading the next message and start getting on with your life again.

Is it a crime to make a deepfake of someone?

Yes. Under section 66E of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it is an offence to create a purported intimate image of an adult without their consent. A purported intimate image is one that looks like a photo or film of you in an intimate state, nude or sexual, when it is not, or not only, a real photo of you. That covers AI images, "nudify" apps and edited photos alike.

The offence is complete when the image is made. It does not matter whether it was ever shared. The person who made it has a defence only if they can prove they had a reasonable excuse. The law came in on 6 February 2026, so it covers images made on or after that date.

Asking someone else to make one is a crime too. Under section 66F, a person commits an offence if they request a fake intimate image of you without your consent, whether or not the image is ever made. That matters, because many of these images are commissioned on forums and paid apps rather than made by the person who wants them.

If the person in the image is, or appears to be, under 18, the law treats it far more seriously. A fake sexual image of a child is an indecent pseudo-photograph under the Protection of Children Act 1978. Report it to the police straight away, and the Internet Watch Foundation can help get it removed.

What if they shared it, or threatened to?

Sharing a fake intimate image of you without your consent is a crime under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The section covers images that show you, and images that only appear to show you, so a deepfake is treated in the same way as a real photo.

A threat like this is meant to make you feel trapped and alone. You are neither, and the person making it is the one breaking the law.

Threatening to share one is also an offence, where the person means you to fear the threat will be carried out, or does not care whether you do. Sharing to cause you distress or humiliation, or for someone's sexual gratification, and threatening to share, can lead to up to two years in prison. If the threat comes with a demand for money or anything else, that is blackmail as well, and our guide to sexual blackmail and sextortion explains what to do.

How the new online safety rules help you get it taken down

The big change is that platforms now have a deadline. For you, that means you are no longer left waiting and hoping that someone at the platform reads your message. Since 29 June 2026, any website or app UK users can reach has had 48 hours to remove a non-consensual intimate image once the person in it reports it, and fakes are included. It also has to take down copies that are the same or nearly the same, so you do not have to find every one yourself. This comes from section 10(3A) of the Online Safety Act 2023, and search engines like Google have the same 48-hour duty to stop the image showing up in their results.

Here is how that works for you in practice.

The report has to be done properly. The 48-hour clock only starts when the platform gets a report it has to act on. It needs to come from you or from someone acting for you, and it needs to give the platform enough detail to find the image. Reports sent through an ordinary online form often go unanswered. Ours are drafted to meet the legal requirements, so the platform cannot claim it was never properly notified.

If the platform is slow, there is a fast lane. Platforms have to offer a quicker complaints route for people who have reported an intimate image of themselves. Should the deadline pass with the fake still online, we use that route and keep chasing until it is gone.

Platforms have a lot to lose. Platforms that ignore these rules risk heavy fines from Ofcom, the regulator: up to £18 million or a tenth of global turnover, whichever is greater. We make sure the platform knows that. In our experience it is sometimes the line in our letter that gets a slow platform moving.

Where these rules do not reach, for example a site with no real connection to the UK, we use the other routes below. You do not need to work out which applies to you. That is our job.

Other ways we get a deepfake taken down

We do not rely on the criminal law alone. A fake sexual image of you is still information about you, so your right to privacy applies to it, whether the image is real or not. Because the image is data about you, data protection law lets you insist that it is deleted. Where someone keeps posting or sending the images, that can also be harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. We choose whichever ground is strongest for each site, and sometimes use several at once.

We also ask Google to remove the pages from its search results. Google has its own process for removing involuntary fake pornography, and a request that sets out the facts clearly is more likely to succeed. If you are worried the image will be uploaded again, StopNCII lets you create a digital fingerprint of it on your own device, without sending the image anywhere, so that participating platforms can block it.

Getting it down matters more than it may seem from the outside. It is often the moment people can open their messages without fear, search their own name without dread and stop wondering who has seen it. It gives them their life back.

Our guide to getting sexual images and videos of you taken down explains the wider process, including what to keep as evidence before anything comes down.

Many of the apps and sites that host fake images are based in North America. The US lawyers we work with, described on our porn lawyers page, can sometimes reach the right person inside the platform.

If you do not know who made it

Not knowing who is behind it does not stop us acting. We understand that not knowing can be the hardest part. You may catch yourself looking at the people around you and wondering. A common story is that the police said the sender could not be traced, because they used an encrypted email service or an anonymous account. That is sometimes the end of the police investigation, but it does not have to be the end of yours.

We look at everything the person has left behind: the email headers, the accounts used, who received the images, when they were sent and what they say. Our in-house team identifies anonymous internet users using open-source intelligence, and a pattern that means nothing on its own can point to someone when it is put together. Where a platform or service holds the information, a court can order it to be handed over through a Norwich Pharmacal order. And where the person still cannot be named, an injunction can be sought against "persons unknown", as it was for a client in GYH v Persons Unknown.

The image may be fake, but the harm is real, and so is the law that protects you.

If it looks like you, but you are not sure it is you

Sometimes people find an explicit video of someone who looks remarkably like them, and they cannot be sure whether it is real, a deepfake or simply a lookalike. This is one of the hardest situations to be in, because asking a site to remove it can feel like admitting it is you. You do not have to face that dilemma alone.

The new offences cover images that appear to be you, so you do not need to prove whether an image is real before acting. But some routes, such as asking Google to delist a page under data protection law, depend on you being identifiable in the content. That is why we start by finding out the facts quietly, before anyone is asked to take anything down.

People we have helped

We have changed names and some details in these stories to protect our clients' privacy.

A young woman came to us after someone had spent two years sending emails in her name to people she had worked with. The emails announced that she was starting a new career in adult content, and each one carried a fake sexual image of her. The police had closed the case twice, because the emails came through an encrypted email service, and told her that would happen again. After two years of wondering who would receive the next email, she was close to giving up. We explained that the email service was not necessarily a dead end, and that the headers, the recipients and the pattern of the emails could still point to the person responsible. For the first time, she left a conversation about it with a way forward rather than another closed door. She now knows what can be done, and when she is ready, so are we. Our account of an online impersonation and catfishing campaign shows how far that kind of work can go.

A man found an explicit video on a popular adult site of someone who looked and behaved remarkably like him. He had no memory of it being filmed and could not be sure it was not him. He was afraid that friends, family or people he worked with would find it, and he could not stop thinking about it. Rather than asking the sites to take it down, which could have linked him to it, we wrote to the production company that made it and asked for its records. They showed that the man in the video was someone else. The fear that had taken over his life ended without a single takedown request, and without anyone linking him to the video.

A woman searched her own name and found it attached to adult videos she had never made. Strangers started messaging her about them, and she suspected an ex-partner she had parted from badly. We asked Google to remove the pages from searches of her name, explaining that the content was false and was doing her real harm. Google agreed quickly, and her name no longer brings them up. When someone searches for her now, they find her, not the fake videos.

More of our work on fake profiles and impersonation is in our catfishing and impersonation cases.

Frequently asked questions

Is it illegal to make a deepfake of someone in the UK?

Yes, if it is a fake intimate image of an adult made without their consent. Since 6 February 2026, section 66E of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it an offence to create one, even if it is never shared. The person has a defence only if they can prove a reasonable excuse.

Is it a crime to ask someone to make a deepfake of me?

Yes. Section 66F of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it an offence to request a fake intimate image of someone without their consent, whether or not the image is ever made.

Someone shared a fake nude of me. Is that a crime even though it is not real?

Yes. Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 covers images that show you and images that only appear to show you. Sharing one without your consent is an offence, and so is threatening to share it.

How quickly can a deepfake be taken down?

Fakes are covered by the 48-hour takedown duty that has applied since 29 June 2026 to platforms and search engines reached from the UK. We send the report for you and chase the platform if it is slow. Sites outside that duty usually act within days of a properly prepared legal notice.

The police say they cannot trace the person. Can anything else be done?

In many cases, more than people expect. We can analyse what the person has left behind, use open-source intelligence, and ask the court to order a platform or service to identify them. Where they still cannot be named, the court can grant an injunction against persons unknown.

Do I have to prove the image is fake before I can act?

No. The law covers images that appear to be you, whether they are real or fake. We usually find out the facts quietly first, so that nothing we do links you to content that may not be you.