Intimate image abuse: removal and support

What this page covers

This guidance is for anyone affected by the non-consensual sharing, or threatened sharing, of intimate images. That includes:

• Real intimate or sexual images shared without consent (sometimes called revenge porn);
• Synthetic or AI-generated intimate imagery (including deepfakes);
• Threats to share intimate material unless money or other demands are paid (sextortion);
• Voyeurism and upskirting imagery;
• Imagery that was originally consensual but has been redistributed without your consent.

Immediate steps

The actions below preserve your position and put you in the best place to act, whether you intend to use the self-service routes on this page, instruct us, or do both.

1. Do not engage with the offender. If you have been threatened or extorted, do not pay, argue, or plead. Engagement encourages further demands.
2. Preserve evidence. Take screenshots of every post, message, profile, and URL. Note the date and time of each capture. Save them on a device the offender does not have access to. Do not delete the messages from your phone; archive or hide them instead.
3. Do not delete your own accounts. Deleting accounts can remove evidence and break investigative trails. If a profile is being used against you, lock it or change its privacy settings rather than deleting it.
4. Block the offender on every channel they have used to contact you, after preserving the evidence.
5. Lock down your accounts. Change passwords on email, social media, cloud storage, and your phone. Enable two-factor authentication everywhere you can.

Free support services

You do not have to pay anyone to act on your behalf. The following services are free, confidential, and operated by organisations with established safeguarding processes.

The legal position in the UK

Sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent is a criminal offence. The position is summarised below.

• England and Wales: Sharing an intimate image without the consent of the person depicted is an offence under section 66B of the Online Safety Act 2023. Threats to share intimate images are also covered. Older conduct may fall under section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 (the original "revenge porn" offence).
• Scotland: Covered under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016.
• Northern Ireland: Covered under the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022.
• Across the UK: The conduct may also engage the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Where the abuse relates to a protected characteristic, the Equality Act 2010 may also be relevant.

You are not required to choose one legal route over another. Police reporting, civil action (such as a privacy or harassment injunction), and platform takedowns can all run in parallel.

How we can help

Our involvement is optional. The free routes above will be enough for many people. Where the situation is more complex, where attribution matters, or where the volume of material has become unmanageable, we offer the following services.

• Attribution and identification of the person responsible, where this is not already known. This often combines open-source intelligence with technical analysis of how the material has been distributed. We work within the Computer Misuse Act 1990 at all times.
• Comprehensive takedown campaigns across many platforms, search engines, and image hosts in parallel, with follow-up where requests are ignored or rejected.
• Search-engine de-listing on your behalf, including the cached and image-search results that often persist after a page is removed.
• Evidence gathering for police reporting, civil claims, or workplace processes — preserved in a form suitable for evidential use.
• Coordination with solicitors for privacy injunctions, harassment injunctions, or civil claims for damages. We work alongside your legal advisers.
• Pattern-of-conduct investigation where the same offender appears to be targeting multiple victims, including dark-web monitoring for new uploads.
• Digital footprint hardening after the fact — securing your accounts, removing personal information from data brokers and people-search sites, and reducing the ease with which a future offender could find or contact you.

We do not require you to use our services to access the guidance on this page. If you would prefer to act on your own first and only contact us if you need professional support, that is the right approach for many people.

Self-service: platform takedowns

Most major platforms have a removal pathway. The challenge is finding the right form and writing a request that gets through their moderation queue. The two templates below cover the main routes.

1. DMCA takedown notice (for platforms in the United States)

If you took the photograph of yourself, you are the copyright owner. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act gives you a legal right to demand removal from US-hosted platforms — and most major platforms (Google, Meta, Reddit, X, TikTok, Tumblr, image hosts, search engines) have a DMCA submission portal. DMCA notices are usually actioned faster than other takedown routes because the platform faces direct legal liability if it ignores them.

Locate the platform's DMCA page (search for the platform name and "DMCA" or "copyright"). Then adapt the template below.

To: [Platform's Designated Copyright Agent — see the platform's DMCA page]
Date: [Today's date]

DMCA TAKEDOWN NOTICE — REQUEST UNDER 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)

I am the owner of the copyright in the photograph(s) described below.
The material has been posted on your service without my permission, and
I request that you remove it.

1. Identification of the copyrighted work.
   I am the author and copyright owner of the photograph(s) at issue.
   The image(s) were taken by me on or about [date(s) the photo was
   taken — approximate is fine].

2. Identification of the infringing material and its location.
   The infringing material appears at the following URL(s) on your
   service:
     - [paste URL]
     - [paste URL]
     - [paste URL — list every URL you can find]

3. Contact information.
   Full name:    [your name]
   Email:        [your email]
   Postal address: [your postal address — required by the DMCA]
   Telephone:    [optional]

4. Good faith statement.
   I have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the
   manner complained of is not authorised by me, the copyright owner,
   my agent, or the law.

5. Statement under penalty of perjury.
   I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this
   notification is accurate, and that I am the copyright owner or am
   authorised to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright that is
   allegedly infringed.

Signature: [type your full name — an electronic signature is accepted]

Notes on adapting the DMCA template:

• If you did not take the photograph yourself, the DMCA route is harder — the copyright belongs to whoever pressed the shutter. In that case, use the UK template below, the Revenge Porn Helpline, or the platform's specific non-consensual intimate imagery reporting form.
• Keep your description of the image short and clinical. You do not need to describe the content in detail; identifying the URL is what matters.
• Submit one notice per platform. Send by the platform's DMCA web form where possible — emailed notices are sometimes ignored.
• Keep copies of every notice and every reply.

2. UK takedown request (citing UK law)

For platforms that do not have a DMCA process, or where the material was taken by someone else, this template asks the platform to act under their own terms of service while citing the UK statutory position.

To: [Platform's content moderation, abuse, or trust-and-safety team]
Date: [Today's date]
Reference: [your previous case number, if any]

URGENT — REQUEST FOR REMOVAL OF NON-CONSENSUAL INTIMATE IMAGE

I am writing to request the urgent removal of intimate image(s) of
myself that have been posted on your platform without my consent. I
am the person depicted in the material.

The image(s) appear at the following URL(s) on your service:
  - [paste URL]
  - [paste URL]
  - [paste URL]

The non-consensual sharing of an intimate image is a criminal offence
in the United Kingdom under section 66B of the Online Safety Act 2023
(England and Wales). Equivalent provisions apply in Scotland under the
Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 and in Northern
Ireland under the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims)
Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. The conduct may additionally engage the
Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the Protection from Harassment
Act 1997.

I have not consented to the publication of this material on your
platform, nor anywhere else. I therefore request that you:

  1. Remove the material from your service immediately;
  2. Confirm removal in writing to the email address below;
  3. Preserve any account, upload, IP, or device metadata associated
     with the post(s) for evidential purposes — I [have reported / am
     in the process of reporting] this matter to the police, who may
     require it;
  4. Take whatever action your terms of service permit against the
     account responsible for posting the material.

If your service operates an automated hash-matching system, please
also accept this notice as a request to add the file(s) to that
system to prevent re-upload.

Yours faithfully,

[your full name]
[your email]
[telephone — only if you want them to call you]

Removing material from search engines

Even after a page has been taken down by a platform, search engines may continue to surface the page or its cached preview for a time. The two major UK search engines have specific processes for non-consensual intimate imagery.

• Google. Use Google's dedicated removal request flow for explicit or intimate imagery. The form asks for the URL of the result, the URL of the image, and your contact details. Action is usually taken within days. Search "Google remove non-consensual explicit imagery" for the current form, as the URL changes from time to time.
• Bing. Microsoft has a similar non-consensual imagery removal request. Search "Bing report concern" or use Bing Webmaster Tools content removal.
• Cached and image-search results are separate items and need to be requested explicitly. Removing a result from the standard web index does not always remove it from image search.

Reporting to the police

You can report this matter to the police whether or not you also want them to investigate. A formal report creates a record that may help with platform takedowns, civil proceedings, or future incidents.

• Non-emergency: Telephone 101, or report online via your local force's website.
• Emergency or immediate threat: Telephone 999.
• Anonymous: Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, but note that anonymous reports limit what police can do.

You are entitled to ask for a female officer where one is available, to be interviewed somewhere other than a police station, and to have a friend or supporter with you. You do not have to share the imagery itself with the responding officer at the first contact — usually a description and the URLs are sufficient.

Ongoing maintenance and digital safety

Takedown work is rarely complete in a single attempt: material can resurface, and search-engine results can take weeks to clear fully. The tasks below are worth doing once the immediate situation is contained.

• Set up a Google Alert for your name so you are notified if it appears alongside related material in future;
• Review the privacy settings on every social profile and switch to private where appropriate;
• Remove yourself from people-search and data-broker websites — this is one of the services we offer where the volume is too large to handle alone;
• Confirm two-factor authentication is enabled on every account that supports it, and replace any reused passwords with unique ones;
• If you would prefer to speak to someone in confidence, free helplines are listed in free support services above. Samaritans (telephone 116 123, free, 24/7) and Mind offer general support outside the takedown process.