Tech companies will be ordered to take down intimate images shared without a victim’s consent within 48 hours under new laws announced by the government to protect women and girls from abuse.
Through an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, the government said companies will be legally required to remove this content no more than 2 days after it is flagged to them.
Platforms which fail to act could face fines of up to 10 per cent of their qualifying worldwide revenue or risk having their services blocked in the UK.
The government added that it wants to ensure that victims will only need to report an image once.
Where an image is reported, the government wants them to be removed from multiple platforms in one go, and ensure they are automatically deleted at every new upload.
As part of that work, regulator Ofcom is considering whether these kinds of images should be treated with the same severity as child sexual abuse and terrorism content, digitally marking them so that any time someone tries to repost them, they will be automatically taken down.
In a further step to protect victims, the government said it will publish guidance for internet providers setting out how they should block access to sites hosting this content, targeting rogue websites that may fall outside the reach of the Online Safety Act.
The move builds on the government’s violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy to change how society responds to these crimes, supports victims and pursues offenders.
Commenting on the measures, prime minister Keir Starmer said that as director of public prosecutions he saw the “unimaginable, often lifelong” pain and trauma that violence against women causes.
“The online world is the frontline of the 21st century battle against violence against women and girls,” he added. “Violence against women and girls has no place in our society, and I will not rest until it is rooted out.”
In December last year, the government announced it will ban “nudification” tools, making it illegal to create or supply apps that generate fake nude images without consent.
Ministers pledged that new rules will make it “impossible” for children in the UK to take, share or view a nude image using their phones.
