Intimate Image Abuse: Internet
(asked on 17th January 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what the impediments are to the removal of non-consensual intimate images posted online.
Answered by
Saqib Bhatti
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Where non-consensual intimate images are posted online via user-to-user services, then the providers who operate these services should have the technical ability to remove these images.
The Online Safety Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. This legislation will give online service providers new duties to implement systems and processes to tackle illegal content on their services and take this content down, including illegal intimate image abuse content.
The Act also updates the law, to make sure that offences criminalising intimate image abuse are fit for the digital age. The intimate image abuse offences, along with the other offences in Part 10 of the Act, will come into force on 31 January.