Revenge porn legal advice

Revenge porn legal advice

By Yair Cohen, Solicitor specialising in internet law. Updated 5 October 2026.

This guide is part of our porn lawyers section.

If an intimate image or video of you has been shared online without your consent, or someone is threatening to share one, the law is on your side. You may be in shock, checking your phone every few minutes for a message saying someone has found it. Please hold on to this: you have done nothing wrong, and this can be dealt with. Sharing it is a crime, threatening to share it is a crime, and the civil courts can order it taken down and the person behind it identified, without waiting for the police. Many of the people who call us for the first time are teenagers who have been too embarrassed to ask anyone for help. If that is you, you are far from the only one. This article explains, in plain terms, where you stand and how we help.

The law on revenge porn: what changed in January 2024

What "without consent" means in practice

It is not only ex-partners

Do you have to go to the police?

Revenge porn and teenager online harassment

Why seek revenge porn legal advice

Taking down revenge porn videos

People we have helped

Taking legal advice for revenge porn

Frequently asked questions

The law on revenge porn: what changed in January 2024

Sharing an intimate photo or video of someone without their consent is a crime. It has been since 31 January 2024, under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Before that date the offence sat in a 2015 Act, and most of the advice you will find online still describes that old law. If what happened to you happened before January 2024, the old law still applies to it, and we can tell you what that means for you.

The new law is better for victims in three ways. First, sharing without consent is enough on its own. The police no longer have to show that the person who shared your images wanted to upset you, which was the reason so many complaints under the old law went nowhere. Second, someone who shares images to cause distress, or for their own sexual gratification, might face up to two years in prison. Third, threatening to share is a crime in its own right, with the same two-year maximum. That applies even if someone has only threatened you and has not shared anything yet, and even if the image they are threatening you with does not exist.

Why does this matter to you, if you would rather not go to the police at all? Because most people who share or threaten to share intimate images have no idea what they are risking. When a solicitor who knows this area sets it out to them in writing, in our experience they tend to stop at once and want the matter settled as quickly as possible. That is how many of our clients get a fast resolution without the police ever being involved, and it is why bringing in a specialist solicitor early makes such a difference. If someone is threatening you right now, our guide to sexual blackmail and sextortion explains how we stop it, in some cases within days.

The law also covers fake images. Seeing a fake image of yourself can be just as upsetting as seeing a real one. A deepfake that appears to show you in an intimate state counts as an intimate image, so sharing one without your consent is the same offence. Since 6 February 2026, making one, or asking someone else to make one, has been a crime as well, under sections 66E and 66F of the same Act.

You do not have to go to the police at all, and a prosecution is rarely the quickest way to get images taken down. In most cases the practical answer is much simpler than people expect. We write to the person who shared or is threatening to share the images, setting out what they have done, what the law says about it and what we will do next if they do not stop. A letter from us nearly always does the job, and fast: the images come down, the threats stop, and the person agrees in writing not to do it again. For many people, that is the moment they stop feeling they are facing it alone. At the same time we send takedown notices to the websites and platforms, which have their own duties to remove this kind of material. Only if all of that fails do we talk about court, and even then the court can act quickly and keep your name out of it. Our guide on how to remove revenge porn from the internet walks through each step.

What "without consent" means in practice

Agreeing to be filmed or photographed is not agreeing to the images being shared. Most people who call us agreed, at some point, to a photo or a video being taken, sometimes by a partner on the partner's own phone, and they assume that this agreement settles the matter against them, and that they only have themselves to blame. It does not, and they do not. The consent that matters is consent to the sharing itself, and the law spells that out. Agreeing to be filmed during an intimate relationship, or agreeing that a partner could keep the images while the relationship lasted, gives no one the right to publish them, and a former partner who shares them commits the offence like anyone else.

Nor do the images belong to the person who took them, in any sense that matters here. They may own the phone, and they may even own the copyright in the file, but that gives them no right to publish a private image of you, and the civil court can restrain them from doing so and order the material taken down. Our guide to privacy injunctions explains how that works.

Consent can also be withdrawn. Hardly anyone sits down with a partner and agrees, in so many words, that the partner can keep intimate images of them for ever. What usually happens is that the images are taken and kept because the two of you are together, and that is the footing on which you went along with it. Once the relationship is over, that footing has gone, and so has any agreement that came with it. The same applies if you were in no fit state to decide when the images were taken. This is part of your right to a private life, which the law protects. The images are also your personal data, which gives you the right to withdraw your consent at any time and to ask for them to be erased. In practice we put all of this to the other person in writing and, where it is needed, we ask for the images to be handed back or destroyed as part of the agreement or the court order.

Sometimes what you want is not only the images taken off the internet but out of the other person's hands for good, so that they cannot hold you to ransom and so that you can stop thinking about it. That is a proper aim, and in many cases we can achieve it, by an agreement backed with an undertaking to the court or by a court order. So do not prejudge your situation or assume that nothing can be done. Come and get advice and we will look at what is possible. In our experience more can be done than people expect.

Agreeing to be filmed is not agreeing to be shared. Consent to one is not consent to the other, and it can be withdrawn.

It is not only ex-partners

The law protects you whoever shared the images. Often it is an ex, but some of our clients had their photos taken from a hacked email or cloud account by someone they have never met, or found them on sites where users swap and ask for intimate images of real people. Some found fake images, with their face put onto someone else's body, which the law treats in the same way. Not knowing who is behind it can be the most frightening part, but it does not stop us acting, and in many cases we can find out. Our guide to deepfake intimate images of you covers those.

Sharing is not only posting online. Showing the images to your friends, family or employer, or sending them to people you know, can be the same offence. And it makes no difference that the images are old, that you posed for them willingly, or that you once made content for a living. You did not agree to them being shared now, or to your real name being put next to them. None of it is a reason to feel ashamed, and none of it stops us acting for you.

Do you have to go to the police?

No, and the choice is yours. Many people dread having to explain something so private to a police officer, and that is completely understandable. If you do decide to report it, we can start work the same day, because the civil route runs separately from any police inquiry. If you do report it, it helps to put your evidence in one folder: the web addresses, screenshots showing the dates, any messages, and the name of anyone you suspect. Hand a copy in and ask for a crime reference number. Even if the police take months, or do not take the case forward, that report can help later.

Please keep a record before anything comes down. When an image is removed, the trail showing where it appeared can vanish with it. We know that looking at the images again can be painful, so if you cannot face it, let us know and we can do this part with you. Our guide on how to remove revenge porn from the internet explains what to save.

Revenge porn and teenager online harassment

If you are a teenager and private images or videos of you have been put online, you are not alone, and help is there for you. Recently, many of the people who call us for the first time have been teenagers. They are frightened, and they have just found out that their private content has been leaked onto websites without their consent. Some pornography websites make money from content like this while the young person in it is left to cope with the hurt. That is wrong, and none of it is your fault.

Young people in this position need to know where to go and who to turn to. Embarrassment keeps many of them silent for far too long, which is why we think this belongs in open conversation, at home and perhaps at school. It also helps to remember that revenge porn is a form of online harassment. Harassment and revenge porn go hand in hand. If you were under 18 when the images were taken, the law gives you extra protection, which we explain in the next section.

Why seek revenge porn legal advice

Getting advice early means the images come down sooner, and you stop carrying this on your own. In many cases the person in the images does not find out about them for some time. Teenagers in particular usually hear about it from close friends or, in some cases, from family members. Finding out that way is a terrible shock, and it is natural to lie awake wondering who else has seen them.

The reason to get advice early is not only to get the images down. Living with this takes a heavy toll on mental health, on wellbeing and on self-confidence. People stop going out, stop trusting others and start to blame themselves for something that was done to them. Getting it dealt with, properly and quickly, is usually the first step to getting those things back. Knowing that someone who does this every day is handling it takes a weight off your shoulders from the first phone call.

In many cases, the person who posted the images or videos is an adult, or someone who has done this before. If the person in the images was under 18 when they were taken, the law treats them as indecent images of a child. Taking, sharing or keeping them is a crime in its own right under section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978, whether or not the young person agreed to be filmed at the time.

Taking down revenge porn videos

Getting images taken down is faster than it used to be, because platforms reached from the UK now face a 48-hour legal deadline once the person shown reports an image shared without consent, under section 10(3A) of the Online Safety Act 2023. Our guide to getting sexual images and videos of you taken down explains how that duty works and what we do when a platform misses it. For sites that ignore reports, we go to the companies that host them and to the search engines, so the images stop showing up against your name.

Finding the images in place after place, perhaps scores of clips and pictures, can feel hopeless, but please hold on. Numbers do not put us off. We have dealt with hundreds of items for past clients, from photos and clips to posts, using a system that tracks down each copy, records it, sorts it and has it removed, quickly enough to cope with large volumes, so you do not have to track every link yourself.

Sometimes a video was made inside a relationship, at a partner's request, and the person in it only finds out much later that it is online. Joelle (not her real name) called us after her boyfriend had asked her to film an intimate video with him, copying things he had seen on a pornography website. A few months after they broke up, someone sent her the video. She had believed it was private, and it was being streamed on pornography websites.

The video made it look as if she was willing and enjoying it. In reality she had been in pain, and she had been made to act in a way she was told was normal. She wanted the videos taken down. Coming forward took courage, and two things made it possible: knowing that she could stay anonymous, and realising that what had happened to her was not normal at all. If any part of her story feels familiar, please know that you can stay anonymous too.

A site run from America or Canada need not slow things down. We bring in US lawyers who know those platforms well, as our porn lawyers page describes.

People we have helped

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

Abbie and Freddie came to us after a former contact of Abbie's abroad posted intimate videos of her on pornographic websites, Reddit and a Telegram group. What worried them most was that the Telegram group used her real name. We had the content and whole channels taken down with copyright notices, and obtained a Norwich Pharmacal order to identify the person behind the Telegram group. They finally felt at peace, knowing the content was gone.

A mother who had made adult films years earlier asked us to get them off the internet. We had most of the content removed and secured her the legal right to control it, so that it could not be re-uploaded. Instead of wondering what might surface next, she now has a say over what happens to those films.

A young woman found that her ex-boyfriend had posted intimate videos and images of her after they broke up, and they were showing up in Google against her name. She went to the police and to the sites herself, and got nowhere. In the end, it was her mother who found us. Because she had taken some of the images herself, we used copyright notices to have the content removed from all nine sites carrying it. We then had the links taken out of Google's search, image and video results, so that searching her name no longer brought them up.

Another woman's intimate images, and a film she had made years earlier under a different name, were taken from her email account. They were posted on a site that collects non-consensual images, and from there on adult sites. A colleague recognised her, and the images reached her family and her employer, with her old name attached. By the time she came to us, the content was in around 500 places, and a paid clean-up company had removed only a few. We had the images, videos and links taken down, and we now watch for anything that reappears, so she does not have to keep checking. She has since gone back into education.

A man living in the United States was sent a link, by someone he thought was a friend, to a naked picture of his sister on an adult site. It was a betrayal by someone he trusted, aimed at someone close to him. The police here did very little until we took the case up with them. We kept pressing, the man responsible was charged, and he was convicted.

Joanna, a professional blackmailed for sex, was living under the threat that intimate material would be shared. Through us she obtained an emergency injunction with anonymity, which stopped the threats. The material was never published, so the thing she feared most never happened.

Taking legal advice for revenge porn

We know how hard it can be, after revenge porn, to make that first call to a specialist lawyer and talk about what happened to you. The person you speak to at our end understands how difficult that call is. Everyone who works with us is trained to handle these conversations with care, because in many cases they are life-changing.

If you have been trying to deal with this yourself and getting nowhere, please call us now. We will take on the hard work of getting private images and videos removed from the internet, so that you no longer have to face it alone. You do not need to have your evidence sorted, or know which route is right for you, before you call. Working that out is our job.

If you want a fuller explanation of how we remove this kind of content, our main guide on how to remove revenge porn from the internet covers takedown notices, prosecution under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, action through the ICO, and the court orders we use to identify whoever uploaded it.

Frequently asked questions

Is sharing intimate images without consent a crime?

Yes. Since 31 January 2024 it has been an offence under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and so is threatening to share. The person does not need to have meant to upset you for the basic offence.

I agreed to the photo or video. Can I still act?

Yes. Consent to taking a picture does not stretch to passing it on. The consent that matters is consent to the sharing itself, and agreement given during a relationship does not let a former partner publish the images.

Do I have to go to the police?

No. Reporting is your choice, and we can act for you either way. Usually our first letter gets the images removed, along with a signed promise from the person not to do it again.

Does the law cover fake images?

Yes. A fake image that appears to show you counts as an intimate image, so sharing it without consent is the same offence. Since 6 February 2026, making one, or asking someone to make one, is also a crime under sections 66E and 66F.

How quickly can the images come down?

Since 29 June 2026, platforms reached from the UK have had two days to act once properly told about an image shared without consent. We file that report for you, keep after it, and turn to the site's host if the site ignores it.

Can I stay anonymous?

Yes. Our letters leave your name out where possible, and a judge can grant you anonymity if proceedings are ever needed.