Professor Clare McGlynn helps change law on sexually explicit deepfakes

Sexually explicit deepfakes are digitally altered images and videos where someone’s likeness is superimposed into pornography.

While it was already a criminal offence to share sexual deepfakes, creating them wasn’t.

That is about to change after the UK Government said it would adopt a proposal drafted by Professor Clare McGlynn, of Durham Law School, and Baroness Charlotte Owen to ensure the new law is comprehensive and consent-based.

“Overwhelmingly persuasive”

This follows months of Parliamentary debate where the Government supported the criminalisation of sexually explicit deepfake creation, but was proposing a more limited offence.

However, the Government has since announced a change of position during a Parliamentary debate in the House of Lords where Professor McGlynn’s research was described as “overwhelmingly persuasive”.

Solicitation

The new law will also cover asking someone else to create a sexually explicit deepfake for you – known as solicitation.

The Government also changed its approach to this issue following an expert briefing from Professor McGlynn and Durham Law School Associate Professor Gemma Davies, an expert on criminal law and extra-territorial jurisdiction. The Government has now committed to ensuring the new law criminalises asking someone to commit the offence for you, regardless of where they (or the person they ask) are located.

Campaign success

This significant law reform was secured as part of the broader campaign to strengthen the law on image-based sexual abuse – the taking, creating and sharing of intimate images without consent.

This campaign is led by survivor-activist #JodieCampaigns, the End Violence Against Women and Girls coalition, the survivor organisation #NotYourPorn and Glamour magazine. 

Find out more

• Professor Clare McGlynn and Associate Professor Gemma Davies are based in Durham Law School.

• Read more about Professor McGlynn’s research on deepfake sexual abuse. She has also written about why this new law is urgently needed.

• See more about the campaign to strengthen the law on image-based sexual abuse.

• Our Law School is ranked 48th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024.Visit our Law webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.