In 2019, the Ministry of Justice asked the Law Commission to review existing criminal law as it relates to taking, making and sharing intimate images without consent. The Law Commission launched a review and published its final report in July 2022.[18]
It found that there is currently no single criminal offence in England and Wales that covers the taking and sharing of intimate images without consent. Instead, the commission argued that a “patchwork of offences has developed over time” and that the law had been unable to keep up with developments in technology and sexual offending.
The Law Commission recommended a new tiered framework of offences which “uses one consistent definition of an intimate image, covers the full range of perpetrator motivations, and applies protective measures to victims consistently”. This framework would be comprised of five new offences, including a base offence of taking or sharing an intimate image without consent.
The government accepted the Law Commission’s recommendations.[19] In a statement to the House of Commons in November 2022, the then secretary of state for justice, Dominic Raab, said that the government would legislate to introduce a package of new offences based on the recommendations when parliamentary time allowed.[20] Further information on these proposals was set out in a government press release.[21]
Mr Raab also said that some of the changes would be made earlier by way of government amendments to the Online Safety Bill. In a further written statement, Michelle Donelan, then secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, said that the government would bring forward an amendment to the bill that would criminalise the sharing of people’s intimate images without their consent.[22] Labour said it would support the proposal.
