The United Kingdom has announced new measures that will require major technology platforms to remove intimate images shared without consent within 48 hours of being reported.
Companies that fail to comply could face fines of up to 10 percent of their eligible global revenue and, in serious cases, risk having their services blocked in the country.
The government said it will amend legislation currently moving through Parliament to create a legal duty for large online platforms to act quickly against nonconsensual intimate images. Although sharing such content is already illegal in Britain, victims have often struggled to get platforms to permanently remove the material.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the online space as a frontline in the fight against violence targeting women and girls. The announcement comes amid growing global concerns about online abuse, especially as AI tools make it easier to create and spread explicit images.
Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom, is considering treating the distribution of illegal intimate images with the same level of severity as terrorist content and child sexual abuse material. The regulator said it may introduce “hash-matching” technology rules that would require platforms to detect and block illegal images at upload, preventing them from being repeatedly shared.
Under the proposed framework, victims would only need to report harmful material once. Platforms would then be responsible for removing identical content across their services and stopping re-uploads. Ofcom is expected to fast-track its decision on the new technical requirements, with potential enforcement measures coming into effect later this year.
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