# Revenge Porn Laws by Country: What Each One Says

Revenge porn laws by country, read from the statutes: the offense, the penalty and the removal route for non-consensual intimate images in six places.

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Revenge porn laws by country share one idea and differ on almost everything else: sharing an intimate image of a person without their consent is a crime in the places read for this guide, but the elements, the maximum penalty and the way an image actually comes down are different in each. Lawyers and regulators prefer the term non-consensual intimate images, because the sharing is not always revenge, the images are not always pornography, and the person pictured has done nothing wrong. This guide uses that term.

Six places were read from the primary source for this guide: England and Wales, the United States (federal law), Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia (the eSafety scheme). Each statement below comes from the statute or the government page read in this session. Countries that were not read are not described: France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore and the individual US states and Australian states are left out on purpose, because a wrong summary of a criminal law is worse than none. If your case is in one of them, a local lawyer or the national victim-support service is the right first call.

This is information, not legal advice. Criminal law punishes the person who shared the image. It does not, by itself, take the image off a website, and the routes that do are separate. Both halves are covered here, starting with the law and ending with the order in which to act.

<div class="box"><b>The short version</b>
<ul><li>In every place read, sharing an intimate image without consent is an offense, but the mental element differs: knowledge or recklessness in Canada and New Zealand, no reasonable belief in consent in England and Wales (with separate offenses for intent to cause distress or for sexual gratification), intent or recklessness about harm in Ireland, and harm or intent to harm in the United States.</li><li>Removal is a different track from punishment. The United States gives victims a written request to platforms with a 48-hour clock, Australia has the eSafety Commissioner, and New Zealand lets a court order a take-down.</li><li>The law that applies depends on where the person who shared the image is, where the content is hosted and where you live. Often two or three laws apply at once.</li><li>Start with a record of the content and a report to the platform, then move to the police or regulator and to a lawyer. You never have to contact the person who shared it.</li></ul></div>

<figure class="keyfacts">
<div class="keyfacts-grid">
<div><b>48 hours</b><span>US covered platforms must remove a reported image within this time of a valid written request</span></div>
<div><b>10 years</b><span>maximum prison term for the Canadian offense when prosecuted on indictment</span></div>
<div><b>51 weeks</b><span>maximum prison term for the basic England and Wales sharing offense, section 66B(1), which is tried summarily</span></div>
</div>
<p class="fig-src">Sources: Pub. L. 119-12 (TAKE IT DOWN Act) on govinfo.gov; section 162.1 of the Criminal Code on the Justice Laws website; section 66B, Sexual Offences Act 2003 on legislation.gov.uk.</p>
</figure>

## Non-consensual intimate images covers more than revenge

The legal category is wider than the tabloid phrase. A revenge motive is rarely an element of the offense in the laws read here. What matters is the missing consent, and in some places the harm that follows. Treat "revenge porn laws" as a search phrase for this whole family.

Three things widen the category. First, threats: Canada's Criminal Code has a separate offense of threatening to share an intimate image to intimidate or to be taken seriously, and the US federal law also punishes threats. Second, fabricated images: the eSafety page read says the scheme covers altered or fake images, including deepfakes, and the US federal law covers what it calls digital forgeries. Third, images that were taken with consent. In the US civil statute read, consent to create the image does not establish consent to share it, and sharing it with one person does not establish consent to further disclosure.

The practical point for a victim: you do not need to prove a bad motive, and you do not need the image to be real. You need to be able to show that you did not agree to the sharing.

## Six places compared on what the law makes illegal

The table keeps to what the sources say. A blank "not read" is deliberate.

<div class="tablewrap"><table><thead><tr><th>Place</th><th>Core of the offense</th><th>Maximum penalty read</th><th>Removal route in the source</th></tr></thead><tbody>
<tr><td><strong>England and Wales</strong></td><td>Intentionally sharing an intimate image without consent and without reasonable belief in consent; separate offenses for intent to distress, sexual gratification and threats</td><td>51 weeks for the basic offense; 2 years on indictment for the others</td><td>None in the section read</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>United States (federal)</strong></td><td>Publishing an intimate image or digital forgery, with harm or intent to harm; separate civil claim</td><td>2 years (adults), 3 years (minors)</td><td>Written request to a covered platform, 48 hours</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Canada</strong></td><td>Knowingly publishing or sharing an intimate image, knowing or reckless about lack of consent</td><td>10 years, indictable</td><td>None in the section read</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Ireland</strong></td><td>Distributing or publishing an intimate image, or threatening to, intending or reckless about harm (section 2); doing so without consent with serious interference with peace and privacy (section 3)</td><td>7 years on indictment (section 2); 12 months, summary only (section 3)</td><td>None in the Act as read</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>New Zealand</strong></td><td>Posting an intimate visual recording knowing or reckless about lack of consent</td><td>2 years or a fine up to $50,000</td><td>Court take-down orders, after a complaint to the Approved Agency</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Australia</strong></td><td>Criminal law not read; eSafety page covers sharing and threats</td><td>Not read; a release describes a civil penalty scheme, in force status unconfirmed</td><td>Report to eSafety, which can help with removal</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>

The penalty column is the maximum in the text read, not a prediction. Sentences in practice sit well below the ceiling, and nobody can promise an outcome from the number.

## England and Wales: the sharing offense in section 66B

England and Wales has a dedicated sharing offense. Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which the page on <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/66B">legislation.gov.uk</a> shows as inserted on 31 January 2024 by the Online Safety Act 2023, applies where a person intentionally shares a photograph or film that shows, or appears to show, another person in an intimate state, the person does not consent, and the sharer does not reasonably believe that the person consents. The same section adds further offenses: sharing with intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation, sharing for sexual gratification, and threatening to share. These are subject to exemptions in section 66C, which was not read for this guide.

Three details matter for a victim. The words "appears to show" mean an image does not have to be genuine to be covered by the wording. In a threat case the prosecution need not prove that the image exists. Consent covers general consent to the type of sharing as well as specific consent to the particular act, and whether a belief in consent is reasonable depends on all the circumstances, including any steps taken to check. And there is a defence of reasonable excuse, which the accused must prove.

The basic offense in subsection (1) is tried summarily: the page gives a maximum of 51 weeks for offenses committed after the relevant commencement time, and six months for earlier ones. The offenses with intent to distress, for sexual gratification and for threats can also be tried on indictment, with a maximum of 2 years. The page states it is up to date as of 24 October 2026, and lists changes by a 2026 Act that are not yet applied, including the omission of subsections (6) and (11), the consent and maximum-term provisions. The wording should be checked on the live page before anyone relies on it. This section was read as applying to England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own law, which was not read for this guide.

## United States: one federal criminal law, one federal civil claim

The United States has state laws as well as federal ones, and the state laws were not read for this guide. Two federal texts were read.

The first is the TAKE IT DOWN Act, Public Law 119-12, enacted on May 19, 2025, as shown on <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ12/html/PLAW-119publ12.htm">govinfo.gov</a>. It creates federal offenses for publishing, through an interactive computer service, an intimate image of an identifiable adult where the person had a reasonable expectation of privacy, the image was not voluntarily exposed in a public or commercial setting, the matter is not of public concern, and the publication was intended to cause harm or did cause harm. It treats digital forgeries similarly, and it punishes threats. The maximum for publication is 2 years where the person pictured is an adult and 3 years where a minor is pictured, with forfeiture and restitution; threats involving digital forgeries carry shorter maximums. It also gave covered platforms until one year after enactment, May 19, 2026, to set up a notice-and-removal process: a written request with a signature, information to locate the content and a good-faith statement that the image was published without consent leads to removal within 48 hours and reasonable efforts to remove known identical copies. The Federal Trade Commission enforces the duty. How that process works in practice has its own guide; here the point is only that the law gives the victim a clock to hold a platform to.

The second text is the civil claim in 15 U.S.C. 6851, read on the Cornell Legal Information Institute site. The person pictured can sue in federal court where an intimate depiction was disclosed in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, without consent, by someone who knew or recklessly disregarded the lack of consent. Relief includes actual damages or liquidated damages of $150,000, attorney's fees and injunctions. The court may protect the plaintiff's identity when the plaintiff sues under a pseudonym. The page read states no limitation period, so a lawyer must confirm the deadline. The statute excludes disclosures made in good faith to law enforcement or in legal proceedings, and matters of public concern.

## Canada: section 162.1 of the Criminal Code

Canada's offense sits in section 162.1 of the Criminal Code, read on the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-162.1.html">Justice Laws website</a>. A person commits it by knowingly publishing, distributing, transmitting, selling, making available or advertising an intimate image of a person, either knowing that the person did not consent or being reckless about it. That list of verbs is wide: it reaches the person who forwards an image as well as the one who first posts it.

The definition of an intimate image covers a visual recording made in circumstances that gave rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy, in which the person is nude, nearly nude, exposing sexual organs or engaged in explicit sexual activity. As the page shows it, the definition also reaches a visual representation, including one made with artificial intelligence software, that shows an identifiable person nude or in explicit sexual activity, but only where it is likely to be mistaken for a real recording of that person. The maximum on indictment is 10 years, with a summary conviction alternative. A threat offense, with intent to intimidate or to be taken seriously, sits in the same section and carries the same 10-year maximum on indictment.

There is a public-good defence, and the accused's motives are irrelevant to whether conduct goes beyond the public good. The section read contains no removal or deletion order. If you need a court order, the route is a separate one and a lawyer must advise on it.

## Ireland and New Zealand: two laws built around harm

Ireland and New Zealand both tie the crime to the harm done. Only New Zealand, in the text read, gives the victim a civil route that does not depend on a conviction.

### Ireland: the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020

Two sections of the Act, read on the <a href="https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2020/en/act/pub/0032/print.html">Irish Statute Book</a>, matter here. Section 2 makes it an offense to distribute or publish an intimate image of another person, or to threaten to, without consent and with intent to cause harm or recklessness about it; harm includes psychological harm. The maximum read is a class A fine or up to 12 months, or both, on summary conviction, and up to 7 years or a fine, or both, on indictment. Section 3 makes it an offense to record, distribute or publish an intimate image without consent where this seriously interferes with that person's peace and privacy or causes alarm, distress or harm; it is dealt with summarily only, with a maximum of a class A fine or up to 12 months, or both. Section 5 protects the identity of the alleged victim of a section 2 or 3 offense: once a person is charged, publishing information likely to identify the victim is itself an offense, unless a judge permits it in the interests of justice. The Act as read contains no take-down order, and the version read is the one on that page, so later amendments were not checked.

### New Zealand: the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015

New Zealand has two tracks, both read on <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html">legislation.govt.nz</a>. Section 22A makes it an offense to post an intimate visual recording of a victim, without reasonable excuse, knowing the victim has not consented or being reckless about it. A person under 16 cannot consent to the posting of a recording of themselves. The maximum is 2 years or a fine of up to $50,000 for an individual, and up to $200,000 for a company. The consolidation read is dated 9 March 2022, so check the site for later amendments.

The second track is civil. An Approved Agency receives and assesses complaints and tries to resolve them by advice, negotiation, mediation or persuasion. An individual generally has to complain to the Agency first, and the court must find a threatened, serious or repeated breach of a communication principle that has caused or is likely to cause harm. The District Court can then order a defendant to take down or disable material, and can order an online content host to take down or disable public access, to release the identity of an anonymous author to the court, or to publish a correction. In section 22A proceedings, section 22B lets the court make interim orders to take down or disable material, and correction, reply or apology orders once the offense is proven. Of the six places, New Zealand is the one where the text read states a court take-down order against a host.

## Australia: eSafety removal notices

The Australian source read is the eSafety Commissioner, not the criminal statutes. The eSafety Commissioner page on image-based abuse (esafety.gov.au) defines it as someone sharing, or threatening to share, an intimate image or video of a person without their consent. It says altered or fake images, including deepfakes, are covered, and that reporting lets eSafety help remove the content or stop the threats. It also notes that criminal laws cover image-based abuse and that police may be able to investigate. Which criminal offense applies depends on the state or territory, and those laws were not read for this guide.

An eSafety media release on tougher rules for image-based abuse describes a scheme in which platforms would have 24 hours rather than 48 to act on a removal notice, and eSafety could seek penalties of up to $111,000 against individuals who share or threaten to share. The release shows no year and speaks of the scheme starting on a future 23 January, so its in-force status could not be confirmed for this guide. Check the eSafety site for the current timeframe and penalties before quoting either in a complaint. Where someone is threatening to share an image to extract money or more content, the eSafety page advises not paying, not sending more content and cutting off contact.

## Which law helps when the person, the host and the victim are in different countries

Image cases cross borders almost by default: one person lives in one country, the person who shared the image in another, and the website sits on servers in a third. Three questions sort out which of the laws above can help, and they are answered separately.

<div class="tablewrap"><table><thead><tr><th>Question</th><th>Why it matters</th><th>What it usually opens</th></tr></thead><tbody>
<tr><td><strong>Where is the person who shared it?</strong></td><td>Criminal law follows the person and the place of the act</td><td>Police report in that country, or in yours if its law reaches the act</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Where is the platform based or operating?</strong></td><td>Removal duties attach to the platform, not to the sharer</td><td>The platform's own report form, the US written request, an eSafety notice</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Where do you live?</strong></td><td>A regulator or court at home may act on content you can see</td><td>Complaint to the regulator, a civil claim, a victim-support service</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>

Whether a given court or police force will take a case with a foreign element is a legal question the sources read do not settle. A lawyer in your country is the person to ask.

An invented scenario shows the order of reasoning. Alex lives in Dublin. An image of Alex, shared once in private, is posted by a former partner living in Vancouver, on a forum hosted by a US company. Under the texts read: Irish section 2 could apply if the former partner intended harm or was reckless about it, and section 3 if the act seriously interferes with Alex's peace and privacy; Canadian section 162.1 could apply to the former partner as the person who published it, knowing or reckless about consent; and if the forum is a covered platform under the US federal law, a written request from Alex with the right content leads to a 48-hour removal duty for the platform. Whether a request from outside the United States is treated the same way is not stated in the text read. Which police force would act and whether any of the criminal laws could be enforced across the border is for counsel, not for this table. The removal track does not wait for that answer.

## What the law does not do, and what runs beside it

A conviction punishes a person. It does not remove copies. Four parallel tracks need to run in any serious case, and each has its own guide, so one paragraph is enough here.

The platform track: every large platform has a reporting form for intimate images, and in the US a platform that is covered by the federal law has a legal duty to act on a valid written request. The shared fingerprinting track: cross-platform tools such as StopNCII exist so that participating platforms can block known images, and how they work is covered in its own guide; the details were not read again for this one. The search track: search engines have their own request routes for explicit images of a person, which are separate from the host removing the content; the search policy page was not read for this guide, so use the engine's current help page. The leaked-photo track: where an image has spread across many sites, removal becomes a sequence of requests, host by host, and a lawyer's notice is sometimes the right tool.

Two failure modes recur. A report that leaves out the page address or a signature is rejected under the US process and starts a new clock. And contacting the person who shared the image often leads to deletion of evidence, new posts or a threat. Direct contact is never a legal requirement.

## The order of operations that protects you

The order below puts evidence first and contact last, and it keeps you in control of what you disclose.

<figure class="fig">
<figcaption><b>A sensible order for the first two weeks</b></figcaption>
<ol class="fig-steps">
<li><b>Record what exists</b>Take dated screenshots of the page showing the image and the address bar, and keep the messages. Store them away from the devices you are worried about. Do not download the image itself if you can avoid it.</li>
<li><b>Report to the platform</b>Use the form for intimate images. In the US, make a written request with a signature, the location of the content and a good-faith statement that it was published without consent.</li>
<li><b>Report to the right authority</b>Police for the criminal offense, and where one exists a regulator such as eSafety in Australia, or the Approved Agency in New Zealand, which a civil application there generally requires first.</li>
<li><b>Ask a lawyer about a civil order</b>A court order may be possible: New Zealand and the US federal civil claim are the two read here. Ask about deadlines at the first meeting.</li>
<li><b>Add the search and fingerprinting routes</b>Once the host has acted, ask the search engine to stop listing the page and use cross-platform blocking tools where they exist.</li>
<li><b>Look after yourself</b>A victim-support service in your country can help with the stress, and with the police process if you want it.</li>
</ol>
</figure>

In most files the first reports go out within a day, the first platform responses arrive in days, and the search and fingerprinting routes follow over the next one to two weeks. These are our usual ranges, not promises, and a platform with no legal duty can take longer or refuse.

## Where to start if this is happening to you

If an image of you is being shared without your consent, start with the record and the platform report. You do not need to wait for a police decision, and you do not need to decide now whether you want a prosecution.

<div class="box hot"><b>If this is happening to you now</b>
<p>Keep a record, report to the platform in writing and contact the police or regulator in your country. If you want help running the removal track in parallel, the leak removal team at Reputation Partners can work with you privately and with your lawyer. See <a href="/leak-removal">leaked and intimate content removal</a>.</p></div>

## Questions people ask

### Is revenge porn illegal everywhere?

Not everywhere, and not under the same name. Every place read for this guide has an offense for sharing an intimate image without consent, but many countries were not read, and the elements, penalties and defences differ. Some laws also depend on harm or intent to cause harm. Check the national or state law where the person who shared it and you live, or ask a local lawyer.

### Does the image have to be real for the law to apply?

Not always. England and Wales covers a photograph or film that shows or appears to show a person, and Canada's definition as shown includes a visual representation of an identifiable person, including AI-generated ones, if it is likely to be mistaken for a real recording. The US federal law covers digital forgeries, and eSafety says deepfakes are covered. Wording differs by place, so a lawyer should confirm how the local law treats fabricated images.

### Can I be prosecuted for forwarding an image I received?

Possibly. Canada's offense lists distributing, transmitting and making available, not only the first posting, and the English offense applies to a person who intentionally shares an intimate image without a reasonable belief in consent. Forwarding is sharing. If you receive an image of someone, do not pass it on, and report it instead.

### What if I originally agreed to the picture being taken?

Agreement to a picture is not agreement to sharing it. The US civil statute says consent to create the depiction does not establish consent to distribute it, and sharing with one person does not establish consent to further disclosure. The English offense also turns on consent to the act of sharing. Other places may phrase it differently.

### How long do I have to take legal action?

It depends on the place and the route. The US civil statute page read states no limitation period, and the limitation rules for the other routes were not read for this guide. Treat the deadline as an urgent question for a lawyer at the first meeting, even when you are unsure you want to sue.

### Will the police remove the image?

Usually not directly. The police investigate the offense. Removal comes from the platform or the host, from a regulator such as eSafety, where one exists, or from a court order. That is why the report to the platform runs in parallel with the report to the police, not after it.