{"id":248557,"date":"2026-05-18T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/tech-firms-face-tougher-uk-rules-on-intimate-image-abuse-ai-artificial-intelligence\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T12:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:45:11","slug":"tech-firms-face-tougher-uk-rules-on-intimate-image-abuse-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/tech-firms-face-tougher-uk-rules-on-intimate-image-abuse-ai-artificial-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech firms face tougher UK rules on intimate image abuse | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tech firms face tougher UK rules on intimate image abuse | AI (artificial intelligence)<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/may\/18\/tech-firms-uk-rules-intimate-image-abuse<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-18 12:41:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Social media, messaging platforms and online forums that publish intimate image abuse \u2013 often intended to humiliate women and girls \u2013 are being instructed to follow new guidelines to stop it spreading.<\/p>\n

Ofcom said it will change its codes of practice to force service providers to detect and quash intimate image abuse \u2013 sometimes called \u201crevenge porn\u201d \u2013 and crack down on AI-generated deepfakes. A wave of deepfakes emerged in January when Elon Musk\u2019s Grok AI was widely used to create sexualised videos of women in bikinis.<\/p>\n

Women and girls have long complained of the difficulty of getting distressing images and videos shared without their consent taken down from public sites.<\/p>\n

The guidelines come as Ofcom warned such images are increasing in prevalence, with generative AI only making things worse. said there was an \u201curgent need to reduce the spread of intimate image abuse online\u201d.<\/p>\n

The new code follows a threatened legal challenge against the regulator by the campaign group End Violence Against Women and Girls, whose lawyers complained Ofcom was \u201cfailing to tackle these sites and failing in its obligations to protect women and girls\u201d.<\/p>\n

Intimate images are classed as those that show nudity or a sexual act, a person\u2019s genitals, buttocks or breasts covered only with underwear, or a person going to the toilet.<\/p>\n

In February, Keir Starmer said that deepfake nudes and \u201crevenge porn\u201d must be removed from the internet within 48 hours or technology firms risk being blocked in the UK, calling it a \u201cnational emergency\u201d that the government must confront.<\/p>\n

Ofcom is now urging sites to use \u201chash-matching\u201d technology, which detects violating intimate images shared without consent and automatically stops them being circulated further.<\/p>\n

The guidelines aim to prevent what the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, on Monday called a \u201cnever-ending nightmare\u201d for victims of intimate image abuse.<\/p>\n

A particular concern for campaigners is niche online forums where people…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tech firms face tougher UK rules on intimate image abuse | AI (artificial intelligence) https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/may\/18\/tech-firms-uk-rules-intimate-image-abuse…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/92f6b258a4472ae40c2889913a6ee4b7b6e9ca90\/552_0_2915_2332\/master\/2915.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=80f427eb5f469cd4efe8ac7487df1d28","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-248557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-generative-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248559,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248557\/revisions\/248559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}