Deepfakes to Deletion Orders: Tackling technology enabled sexual offending in the Crime and Policing Act 2026

On 29 April 2026, the Crime and Policing Bill received Royal Assent and will take effect as the Crime and Policing Act 2026 (the “CPA”) on 29 June 2026.

The CPA is wide-ranging in its ambit, encompassing matters including anti-social behaviour, serious violence, policing powers and national security.

Of significance is the CPA’s response to the novel issues posed by the growing role of technology, social media and online platforms and how they interplay with the current legal regime on sexual offences.

The CPA introduces a range of new offences relating specifically to technology aided offending of a sexual nature. The CPA seeks to close the perceived gap between harmful sexual acts conducted online, and the existing criminal offences covered in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (the “SOA 2003”).

Existing Law
 

Prior to the CPA, the primary legislative framework governing sexual offences was the SOA 2003.

The Online Safety Act 2023 addressed the growing role of technology in the commissioning of sexual offences and made it a criminal offence to share or threaten to share intimate images without consent, explicitly including deepfakes within its scope. It also required social media platforms proactively to prevent such content from appearing to users.

In addition, the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 created criminal offences relating to the intentional creation of, or request to create, explicit deepfakes of an adult without their consent.

Further expansion
 

The CPA introduces a series of further offences in relation to online sexual offending. The key changes are as follows.

Deepfakes

Section 99 CPA creates the criminal offence of supplying AI tools with the purpose of creating fake nude or sexualised images. The offence targets the providers and distributors of AI software which are designed to strip clothes from images of real people.

The CPA therefore criminalises the commercialisation of the ‘deepfake’ industry, targeting the creators of AI tools as well as those who use them for sexual offending.

Harmful pornography

The CPA expands the scope of what is considered harmful pornography, including:

• pornography depicting of strangulation or suffocation (‘choking’) (section 104, CPA);
• content normalising incest/step-incest themes (section 106, CPA); and
• pornography depicting adults roleplaying as children (section 107, CPA).

Intimate images (including ‘Upskirting’)

The CPA has repealed and replaced the existing voyeurism offences relating to ‘upskirting’ and created three new offences relating to intimate images, inserting Section 66AB into the SOA 2003 (Schedule 13, 3 CPA):

• Taking or recording an intimate photograph or film without consent or a reasonable belief in consent; 
• Taking or recording an intimate photograph or film without consent and with intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation; and 
• Taking or recording an intimate photograph or film without consent or reasonable belief in it, and for the purpose of sexual gratification of oneself or another. 

The CPA also introduces new offences that criminalise the installation, adaption, preparation or maintenance of equipment with the intention of using the equipment to commit the above offences. This offence is directed at technology (such as cameras) adapted for the purpose of taking covert intimate recordings without the person’s consent (Section 66AD, SOA 2003).  

The CPA now criminalises ‘creating a copy’ of intimate images without that person’s consent. This applies where a person takes a screenshot of an intimate image sent by the sender, where the sender sent the image so it can only be viewed for a limited time (section 66AE, SOA 2003). This offence is a response to widely used ‘disappearing message’ technology, in apps such as Snapchat.

Section 102 of the CPA also creates new powers for courts to issue deletion orders on sentencing, requiring the defendant to destroy or delete or, where it has been posted online, take down the relevant intimate image. Breach of the deletion order will itself be a criminal offence.

The CPA has created a new criminal offence (66AA, SOA 2003) of sharing a ‘semen-defaced’ image of another person without their consent.

Finally, Schedule 14 of the CPA has introduced the power for ministers to create and maintain an ‘intimate images register’, where information about non-consensual intimate images can be provided to internet services providers. Ministers have the power to enact secondary legislation, including imposing duties on internet services providers to share relevant information, such as hash codes, for relevant images.  

Corporate liability

Section 250 of the CPA expands corporate criminal liability so that companies can be held criminally liable where a “senior manager” commits an offence while acting in the company’s actual or apparent authority.

Significantly, the CPA expands corporate criminal liability to all criminal offences. Further information on this can be found here.

The CPA also creates specific obligations on technology companies to prevent sexual offending on their platforms.

• Section 100(2) of the CPA places duties on platforms to remove content reported as an intimate image shared without the person’s consent, within 48 hours.
• Technology company executives could personally face imprisonment or fines if they fail, without reasonable excuse, to remove non-consensual intimate images from their platform after having been ordered to do so by Ofcom (section 100(10) CPA).

These changes mark a shift towards increasing accountability for online services and platforms which host illegal content. The CPA creates not only corporate liability but personal criminal liability, with sentences that include imprisonment and/or fines.

The CPA represents a modernisation of sexual offences law, building upon existing legislation to address technology-enabled sexual offending. The shift in focus towards AI and technology reflects an attempt to keep legislation ‘up to speed’ with the ever changing digital world.

About the author

Sophie Tang is a Senior Associate in the Criminal Litigation team. Sophie’s practice includes all areas of criminal litigation, with particular expertise in general crime and white collar crime. She represents individuals and corporate clients from the initial stages of an investigation through to trial.

Sacha is a Trainee Solicitor currently in her fourth seat with the Criminal Litigation team. Sacha joined Kingsley Napley in September 2024.