Deepfake porn law: how to report a deepfake, get it removed and make someone answer for it.

Is deepfake porn illegal? In England and Wales and in the United States, yes. Sharing a sexually explicit deepfake of someone without their consent is a criminal offence in both, creating one has been an offence in England and Wales since 6 February 2026, and platforms in both countries must now take reported images down within 48 hours. This guide covers what the deepfake porn law actually says on each side of the Atlantic, what to preserve before anything else, how to report a deepfake and get it removed, how to involve the police, what you can claim from the person responsible, and who to call if you need support now.

Is deepfake porn illegal? The short answer

One point applies everywhere and matters to anyone who creates adult content: the offences turn on consent to the image in question. Having chosen to publish your own content on OnlyFans or elsewhere is not consent to someone else fabricating sexual images of you. The law does not give you less protection because of your work.

Deepfake porn law in the UK

The criminal offences below apply in England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own legislation.

Sharing. Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, inserted by the Online Safety Act 2023, makes it an offence to intentionally share a photograph or film which shows, or appears to show, another person in an intimate state without their consent and without a reasonable belief in consent. Deepfakes are caught because the definition of a photograph or film includes an image made or altered by computer graphics which appears to be a photograph or film. The basic offence is tried in the magistrates' court; sharing with intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation, or for sexual gratification, and threatening to share, carry up to two years' imprisonment.

Creating and requesting. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 added two offences to the 2003 Act, in force since 6 February 2026: intentionally creating a purported intimate image of an adult without consent (section 66E), and requesting its creation (section 66F). Both are summary offences punishable by imprisonment, a fine or both. The second matters in practice: the person who commissions a deepfake from a stranger online is now liable too.

Tools and platforms. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 went further. Making or supplying a tool designed to generate purported intimate images is an either-way offence carrying up to three years, and, since 29 June 2026, services regulated by the Online Safety Act must take down reported intimate image content, and substantially similar material, as soon as reasonably practicable and no later than 48 hours after receiving the report. Ofcom enforces the duty.

Deepfake porn law in the US

The federal crime. The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed on 19 May 2025, added subsection (h) to 47 U.S.C. § 223. Knowingly publishing a 'digital forgery' of an identifiable adult (an intimate image created by software, machine learning or artificial intelligence that looks indistinguishable from a real one) without consent, where it causes or is intended to cause harm, carries up to two years; three if the person depicted is a minor. Threatening to do so to intimidate, coerce or extort carries up to 18 months for an adult.

The 48-hour rule. The Act gave covered platforms (social media, image and video sharing, messaging, gaming and other user-generated content services) one year to set up a notice-and-removal process. That deadline passed on 19 May 2026, and the FTC has been enforcing it since, with civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation. The FTC confirms the duty covers AI-generated images as well as real ones.

State laws. According to Ballotpedia's count in August 2026, 48 states now have laws addressing sexually explicit deepfakes; Ohio and New Mexico were the exceptions. They differ widely: some are criminal, some give a civil claim, some cover only minors. Which one applies to you depends on where you and the person responsible live.

First steps: what evidence should you keep?

Everything that follows depends on what you can prove. Removal comes second.

1. Screenshot each post in full: URL visible, date and time, account name, view count if shown.
2. Log every address in a simple table: link, platform, date found, date reported, response received.
3. Keep the context: threats, blackmail messages, the messages that alerted you, accounts sharing the image, any payment details demanded.
4. Secure your accounts: change passwords, turn on two-factor authentication, review what access any agency or third party still has. Deepfakes are usually built from photos taken from your public profiles.

Do not pay anyone who threatens to publish: payment almost always leads to a second demand. Do not contact the suspected author, and do not repost the image yourself, even to call it out.

How to report a deepfake and remove it

Platforms. Use each service's form for non-consensual intimate imagery. In the US, a valid TAKE IT DOWN request contains four things: your physical or electronic signature (or that of someone authorised to act for you), information sufficient to identify and locate the image, a brief statement that you believe in good faith it is not consensual, and your contact details. The platform must remove it and make reasonable efforts to remove known identical copies within 48 hours. If it does not, you can complain to the FTC at takeitdown.ftc.gov. In the UK, a report to a regulated service identifying the content and made in good faith triggers the 48-hour duty.

StopNCII. This free tool, run by the charity behind the UK Revenge Porn Helpline, creates a digital fingerprint of the image on your own device and shares only that fingerprint with partner platforms, which then block matching copies. It accepts synthetic images, provided the image shows you, you have a copy, and you were over 18 in it. Under-18s should use NCMEC's Take It Down service instead.

Search engines. Google has a dedicated form to remove fake sexually explicit images from its results where you are identifiable, the image falsely depicts you nude or in a sexual situation, and it was shared without your consent. De-indexing does not delete the image from the site, but it cuts off most of the traffic while removal at source runs its course.

Copyright. If the fake was built from your own photos or videos, a DMCA notice may also be available, as explained in our guide to handling an OnlyFans content leak. Whether it succeeds depends on how much of your original work is recognisable in the fake.

Going to the police

In England and Wales, call 999 if you are in immediate danger or being blackmailed right now, and otherwise 101 or your force's online reporting service. Bring your screenshot log and a one-page timeline, and ask the officer to record the specific offences: sharing under section 66B, creating or requesting under sections 66E and 66F, and threats if there were any.

In the US, report to your local police department. A report does not prevent you from using the platform and FTC routes at the same time, and in blackmail cases it is often the only way to identify the person behind an anonymous account.

Can you get damages?

Criminal law punishes; civil law compensates. In England and Wales, deepfake victims can rely on misuse of private information and, where the conduct is repeated, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Both can support an injunction ordering the material to be taken down and not republished, and an award of damages. Where the person behind an account is unknown, the courts can order a platform or provider to disclose their identity.

In the US, many state deepfake laws include a private right of action. At federal level, 15 U.S.C. § 6851 allows a person whose intimate images were disclosed without consent to recover actual damages or $150,000 in liquidated damages, plus legal costs; whether it covers purely synthetic images is not settled. The DEFIANCE Act, which would create an express federal claim for sexual deepfakes, passed the Senate unanimously in January 2026, but had not been enacted when we last checked.

No court works from a fixed tariff. What moves the figure is how far the image spread, for how long, and what it cost you, including lost income. For a creator, platform statements from before and after the deepfake appeared are the clearest evidence of that loss: keep them.

What we see in practice, and where to get help

Deepfake cases rarely come alone. The fake is often built from public photos and used alongside blackmail, a fake account selling so-called 'leaks', or harassment after a relationship or an agency deal breaks down. And victims wait too long, often because they fear that working in adult content will count against them. It does not. If an agency runs your account, your contract should say who responds, how and how fast: see the clauses of an agency contract.

You do not have to deal with this alone:

• UK: Revenge Porn Helpline, 0345 6000 459 or help@revengepornhelpline.org.uk, for adults affected by intimate image abuse, including deepfakes.
• US: CCRI Crisis Helpline, 844-878-2274, free and available 24/7, for information, support, referrals and non-legal advice.
• Emergencies: 999 in the UK, 911 in the US.

Preserve the evidence, report every post, block copies with StopNCII, have it de-indexed, then report the offence. If you want your file reviewed, the first call with us is free, through the creators page.

Your contactOlivier MaciejewskiFounder of OFM Legal · Former international business lawyer (HEC Paris, Arendt, Clifford Chance) · Official MYM partnerHis background Updated September 12, 2026

This article is general information and does not replace advice tailored to your situation. OFM Legal is not a law firm: court proceedings are handled by our partner lawyers.

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