Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government when section 66AE inserted into the Sexual Offences Act 2003 by paragraph 3 of Schedule 13 Part 1 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 pertaining to creating a copy of intimate photograph or film shared temporarily will commence.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
Section 66AE of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as inserted by Part 1 of Schedule 13 to the Crime and Policing Act 2026, creates an offence of making a copy of an intimate photograph or film shared temporarily and will be commenced by regulations as soon as reasonably practicable. We must ensure that there is sufficient time to consider and manage the effect on the criminal justice system and for law enforcement to update guidance and train prosecutors and police officers.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to bring the sharing of non-consensual AI-generated intimate images by chatbots into scope of the image-based abuse offences under section 66D of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
Section 66D of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 provides information on how to interpret the “sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film” offences in section 66B. Section 66D(2) states, “A person “shares” something if the person, by any means, gives or shows it to another person or makes it available to another person.”
“By any means” would include the sharing of such images without consent using digital tools such as a chatbot, app or other software, if a person has requested or prompted the digital tool to do so, whether as part of the creation of the image or as a separate act.
Section 98 and Section 102 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 will be commenced by regulations as soon as reasonably practicable. We must ensure that there is sufficient time to consider and manage the impact on the criminal justice system and for law enforcement to update guidance as well as train prosecutors and police officers.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government when section 98 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 pertaining to offences relating to semen-defaced images, intimate photographs or films and voyeurism will commence.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
Section 66D of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 provides information on how to interpret the “sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film” offences in section 66B. Section 66D(2) states, “A person “shares” something if the person, by any means, gives or shows it to another person or makes it available to another person.”
“By any means” would include the sharing of such images without consent using digital tools such as a chatbot, app or other software, if a person has requested or prompted the digital tool to do so, whether as part of the creation of the image or as a separate act.
Section 98 and Section 102 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 will be commenced by regulations as soon as reasonably practicable. We must ensure that there is sufficient time to consider and manage the impact on the criminal justice system and for law enforcement to update guidance as well as train prosecutors and police officers.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government when section 102 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 pertaining to image deletion orders will commence.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
Section 66D of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 provides information on how to interpret the “sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film” offences in section 66B. Section 66D(2) states, “A person “shares” something if the person, by any means, gives or shows it to another person or makes it available to another person.”
“By any means” would include the sharing of such images without consent using digital tools such as a chatbot, app or other software, if a person has requested or prompted the digital tool to do so, whether as part of the creation of the image or as a separate act.
Section 98 and Section 102 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 will be commenced by regulations as soon as reasonably practicable. We must ensure that there is sufficient time to consider and manage the impact on the criminal justice system and for law enforcement to update guidance as well as train prosecutors and police officers.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to bring the requests for and creation of non-consensual intimate images from a chatbot into the scope of the image-based abuse offences under sections 66E and 66F of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
Section 66E of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 provides for the offence of creating a purported (or ‘deepfake’) intimate image of an adult without their consent or reasonable belief in their consent.
The offence applies regardless of the tool used to create the purported intimate image, so includes the creation of such images without consent using digital tools such as a “chatbot”, a nudification app, or image manipulation software.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
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.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they take to ensure that child sexual abuse material is completely removed from cloud servers as well as local devices upon the conclusion of any trial concerning such material.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
The Ministry of Justice does not hold operational responsibility for the removal of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from devices or cloud servers. Where such material is obtained as part of a criminal investigation, responsibility for the retention, secure storage and destruction of such material rests with the police who act in accordance with operational, evidential and legal requirements.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Levitt on 24 November 2025 (HL11755), what are the reasons for the delay in bringing the provisions of section 138 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 into effect; and what is the timeframe for bringing those provisions into effect.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
As with many criminal law provisions, section 138 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is brought into force by regulations made by the Secretary of State, to ensure sufficient time to take into account and manage impacts on the criminal justice system and operational preparedness.
We have now laid the regulations to bring section 138 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 into force; they were signed by Minister Davies-Jones last week. The offences will come into force on 6 February (21 days after being signed) as is standard practice for new criminal offences.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede on 16 July (HL9057), whether they now have a timeframe for bringing section 138 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 into effect.
Answered by Baroness Levitt
This Government is committed to implementing the provisions in section 138, as soon as practicable.
These provisions will be commenced by regulations at an appropriate time, having regard to any impact on the wider criminal justice system.
Asked by: Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government when the provisions in section 138 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 will come into effect.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
This Government remains committed to delivering on its commitment to criminalise the non-consensual creation of purported intimate images.
As with several other measures in the Act, the provisions in section 138 will come into effect when commenced by regulations in due course.