The creation of sexually explicit "deepfake" images is to be made a criminal offence in England and Wales under a new law, the government says.

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It will apply regardless of whether the creator of an image intended to share it, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said.

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Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University who specialises in legal regulation of pornography and online abuse, told the Today programme the legislation has some limitations.

She said it "will only criminalise where you can prove a person created the image with the intention to cause distress", and this could create loopholes in the law.

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The first concrete step is to ensure the new law is comprehensive, covering anyone who deliberately makes a sexually explicit deepfake without consent. Unfortunately, the government’s current proposal is limited, requiring proof the perpetrator is motivated by sexual gratification or causing distress. This won’t include men claiming artistic motives or saying they’re only having a laugh. Also, even if the perpetrators are trying to cause distress, actually proving it is difficult.

We should name this abuse for what it is – creating a digital forgery. It’s stealing someone’s likeness and sexual identity, creating a false representation of someone. It’s non-consensual conduct: neither the porn actor nor the woman whose image is imposed into the porn has consented to their images and identities being used in this way, and we don’t allow such false claims in other walks of life.

The current proposal will also create unjustifiable differences. If someone takes an image of you sleeping nude without your consent, it’ll be an offence, whatever their motives. But, if they take an image of you clothed, then use AI to make it nude, it will only be an offence if there is actual proof their purpose was causing distress or sexual gratification. Most women will recognise both acts as being intrusive and violating, regardless of the motives, and won’t accept them being treated differently. As the Revenge Porn Helpline says, motive requirements will make any new law difficult to evidence, charge and prosecute.

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A comprehensive criminal law makes clear that deepfake sexual abuse websites and apps have no lawful purpose, empowering us to impose greater obligations on the internet services that are facilitating and encouraging deepfake sexual abuse. That means challenging the payment providers that continue to prop up the deepfake financial ecosystem; saying to Google and Bing they can no longer highly rank deepfake porn sites and apps; making YouTube remove the videos telling people how to create sexually explicit deepfakes; removing adverts for nudify apps on mainstream social media such as X (formerly Twitter).

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