On 29th June 2026, the Crime and Policing Act 2026 comes into effect. This wide-ranging piece of legislation builds upon existing laws to address ‘gaps’ left by developing technology such as AI.
Some of the highlights of this legislation include:
- The new offence of making or supplying ‘purported intimate image generators’ (Section 99), or to put it another way ‘AI nudifying’ apps. This follows up on the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, which made it an offence to create non-consensual intimate images – this now targets the tools used to commit those offences.
- An expansion of prohibitions of what is referred to as ‘harmful pornography’. Recent years have seen extreme pornography legislation expanded to include material depicting rape, and now further categories of material are also to be included. This includes:
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- Pornography depicting strangulation or suffocation (Section 104).
- Pornography depicting incest, including both real and staged relations (Section 106).
- Pornography depicting adults pretending to be children under 16 (Section 107), with an important caveat that a person is not to be taken as pretending to be a child if it is ‘fanciful that they are actually under 16’.
- New offences surrounding creation of intimate images without consent, further developing existing ‘upskirting’ laws (Schedule 13).
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- Taking or recording an intimate image without consent.
- Taking or recording an intimate image without consent and with intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation.
- Taking or recording an intimate photograph or film without consent or reasonable belief in it, and for the purpose of sexual gratification.
- Installation, adaption, preparation or maintenance of equipment with the intention of using the equipment to commit the above offences.
- Sharing of images which have been defaced with semen.
- A new offense of creating a copy of intimate images shared temporarily without consent (Schedule 13, Section 3). This is aimed at the modern trend for intimate images to be sent via platforms such as Snapchat intending to ‘disappear’ after being viewed, but these may be screenshotted to retain them without the sender’s consent.
- New powers to issue deletion orders (and the offence of breaching such an order), requiring the deletion of intimate images, including removal from any online services they have been published on (Section 102).
Whilst CPA 2026 ensures England and Wales sexual offence laws are keeping pace with modern technology, and it is positive to see many of the gaps in existing legislation being closed, it does add to the number of offences where subjective assessment of images will form the cornerstone of criminal prosecutions. Any process that relies on human judgement is susceptive to error, and where the subject matter is highly emotive, such as in sexual offence matters, unconscious bias (decisions made outside of conscious awareness) can influence decisions. We’ve seen this in previous casework, and with an expansion of the law situations where having a second, independent opinion becomes a must, will undoubtedly increase.
Add to this, as more types of pornography are brought into the scope of legislation, there is the increased risk that people will fall foul of the law by inadvertently stumbling across material (that is lawful elsewhere in the world) when browsing lawful material. This may not be something that’s been considered by the police, and almost certainly won’t be addressed in simplified Streamlined Forensic Reports relied upon by the prosecution - which typically report the presence of an image without context. Having a digital forensic expert consider the circumstances of how the image was created (for example, what search terms were used, or whether images were downloaded in bulk) can add context and shine a very differently light on something that at first glance appears compelling.
If you have a digital forensic case that would benefit from independent assessment, or you would like to discuss the impact of the new legislation on any of your cases, you can speak directly to our Digital Forensics Experts on 0191 332 4999 or contact us at kbc@keithborer.co.uk.
