Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 11
4th Report – Tackling non-consensual intimate image abuse
Published 5 Mar 2025
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee Tackling non-consensual intimate image abuse All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government should take a holistic approach to legislating against NCII abuse by introducing a swift, inexpensive statutory civil process, as has been established in other jurisdictions such as British Columbia in Canada. Doing so would recognise survivors’ wishes to access redress beyond the criminal law, as well as empower them to take fast and effective action towards having their NCII taken down or blocked. Such a regime should be alongside and underpin the creation of a registry of NCII content—overseen by an expert body—that internet infrastructure providers are requested to take all reasonable steps to prevent access to. The statutory regime should enable civil courts to make orders, including: 53 a. designating an image as NCII content and ordering its inclusion on a dedicated registry for the purposes of having IIPs take action to prevent access to that content; b. prohibiting the individual from distributing the intimate image; c. requiring the individual to delete any images; d. requiring the individual to take down or disable access to an intimate image; e. requiring the individual to pay compensation for harm caused; f. requiring the provider and/or end user of a social media service, relevant electronic service or designated internet service to remove an intimate image from the service; g. requiring a hosting service provider who hosts an intimate image to cease hosting the image. (Recommendation, Paragraph 71)
From: Women and Equalities Committee, 4th Report – Tackling non-consensual intimate image abuse (HC 336), 5 March 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 May 2025 (deadline 5 May 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government gives a mixed response, rejecting a majority of the recommendations while accepting some in full or in part and pointing to existing provisions and the forthcoming VAWG Strategy.
- On the Revenge Porn Helpline, it records "Partial acceptance" and is providing £300,000 for 2025/26 (up from £210,000), with funding beyond that "determined through the Spring Spending Review".
- It rejects bringing online sexual offences and NCII within the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, saying this would "fundamentally alter the purpose of the Scheme".
- It rejects a statutory civil process, citing "little evidence" about the British Columbia model and overlap with existing routes, but says it "will consider this further" in developing the VAWG Strategy.
- It accepts the recommendation on nudification apps, saying it is "actively looking at options" and "will update the Committee on this in due course".