Revenge porn in the UK: report it, and keep a record of what was posted
In England and Wales, sharing an intimate image of you without your consent is a criminal offence, while Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own offences. Report it to the police, the Revenge Porn Helpline, StopNCII and the platform. In 2026, ProofSnap lets you keep a timestamped record of where it was posted before a takedown removes it.
Support is free. Revenge Porn Helpline: 0345 6000 459. If you are in immediate danger, call 999.
In England and Wales, sharing an intimate image without consent, or threatening to share one, has been a criminal offence since 31 January 2024 under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Report it to the police, the Revenge Porn Helpline and StopNCII. ProofSnap lets you preserve the page as timestamped evidence before you report.
Two things are worth knowing before you do anything else. First, the Online Safety Act 2023 places duties on platforms, and Ofcom enforces those duties against platforms rather than acting on your behalf. Second, once the material is removed or blocked, the URL, the account name and the surrounding page stop being available to anyone who later has to prove what was posted.
By Radim Motycka, Founder and Lead Engineer, ProofSnap, 10+ years in cryptographic protocol design · · Independently verifiable via the Trust Verifier
Read this first
Five practical points that matter more than anything else on this page. None of them costs money and none of them requires software.
1. Get support. It is free and it is confidential.
The Revenge Porn Helpline supports anyone aged 18 or over anywhere in the UK. You can reach it on 0345 6000 459 or at help@revengepornhelpline.org.uk. If you are in immediate danger, call 999. You do not need to have decided anything before you get in touch.
2. If anyone in the image is under 18, do not copy it at all.
Do not screenshot it, download it, forward it or save it, not even to preserve it as evidence. Report it to the police and to the Internet Watch Foundation, and let them handle the image.
3. Do not forward the image to anyone, even to keep a copy safe.
Sending it on to a friend, a group chat or a cloud album spreads it further and adds nothing a report needs. What a police officer, a helpline caseworker or a solicitor works from is where it was posted: the URL, the platform, the account, the date and the messages around it.
4. Your identity is protected in any reporting of the case.
In England and Wales, the Crown Prosecution Service states that automatic reporting restrictions apply to the sharing and threat offences in force since 31 January 2024, so you cannot lawfully be identified in any reporting of the case. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own reporting restrictions, so ask the officer taking your report how they apply to your case.
5. ProofSnap preserves evidence. It does not take anything down.
Removal is done by the platform, the police, StopNCII or the Revenge Porn Helpline. ProofSnap records what a page looked like at a moment in time, so the report you file and the case that may follow still have a fixed record after the page is gone. It issues no notices on your behalf.
Which offence applies, and where
Whether people call it revenge porn, leaked nudes or intimate image abuse, the United Kingdom does not have a single offence for it. England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own, prosecuted under their own criminal procedure, so the first question is where the conduct happened.
England and Wales: section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003
This is now the governing provision in England and Wales. It was inserted by the Online Safety Act 2023 and has applied since 31 January 2024, replacing the old offence of disclosing private sexual photographs, which still applies to conduct before that date. It covers both sharing and threatening to share.
"A person (A) commits an offence if (a) A intentionally shares a photograph or film which shows, or appears to show, another person (B) in an intimate state, (b) B does not consent to the sharing of the photograph or film, and (c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents."
Subsection (1) of that section, as inserted by the Online Safety Act 2023 (legislation.gov.uk)
Note the words "or appears to show". Subsection (4) creates the separate threat offence, committed where someone threatens to share an intimate photograph or film intending that you, or someone who knows you, will fear that the threat will be carried out, or being reckless as to whether such fear will be caused. That is the provision that fits most sextortion messages, and it does not require the image ever to have been shared.
Sexually explicit deepfakes: an offence since 6 February 2026
A sexually explicit deepfake is a purported intimate image, and creating one of an adult without consent is a separate offence in England and Wales. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 added two offences to the Sexual Offences Act 2003: creating a purported intimate image of an adult without consent, and requesting its creation. The commencement regulations brought them into force on 6 February 2026.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
The England and Wales offences do not apply there. In Scotland, disclosing or threatening to disclose an intimate image, intending to cause fear, alarm or distress or being reckless as to that, is an offence under the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016, prosecuted by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. In Northern Ireland, disclosing, or threatening to disclose, a private sexual photograph or film with intent to cause distress is an offence under the Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2016.
The Online Safety Act 2023 and what Ofcom does
Ofcom published its Illegal Harms Statement and the first edition of its Codes of Practice on 16 December 2024. Services had until 16 March 2025 to complete an illegal content risk assessment, and the safety duties took effect on 17 March 2025 once the Codes had completed their passage through Parliament. Ofcom enforces those duties against providers. What Ofcom does not do is deal with your individual takedown request, so treat it as a regulator of platforms rather than a route for your own case.
What goes wrong
Why the record usually disappears
Every reporting route ends with the material being removed. That is the outcome everyone is working towards, and it is why it helps to keep your own record before removal.
Removal erases the record
A successful takedown is what you asked for. If the live page is your only record of the URL, the account and the surrounding page, the takedown succeeds and your record goes with it.
The person who posted it deletes first
The person who posted it often removes it the moment they realise it has been reported, and deactivates the account. A capture made while it is live is not something they can undo.
Where it was posted matters as much as what was posted
A takedown request, a police report and any later claim all need the location: the URL, the platform, the account, the date. Those details live on the page and in its source, and a cropped phone screenshot often leaves them out.
Where to report, and what each route does
Four routes, and none of them is an ombudsman or a complaints body. Knowing which one does what saves time when you are least able to spare it.
Revenge Porn Helpline
A free UK support service, run by SWGfL, that works directly with platforms to get intimate images removed. The Revenge Porn Helpline 2024 Annual Report, published by SWGfL, reports a takedown success rate of 90.9 per cent, and says that since the service opened in 2015 more than 412,000 intimate images have been reported and 387,000 removed. It supports anyone aged 18 or over.
StopNCII
StopNCII generates a digital fingerprint, a hash, of the image on your own device, so partner platforms can detect and block matching uploads without you ever sending the image itself. It is useful when you fear an image will be shared, not only after it has been. It is for adults aged 18 or over, and it is a blocking tool, not an evidence tool: the hash tells you nothing about who posted what and when.
The police
Call 101, report online through your local police force's website (Police Scotland in Scotland, the PSNI in Northern Ireland), or go to any police station. The police work from evidence, and the evidence is the posting, the account and the messages around it.
The platform's own reporting route
Report the content to the platform itself as well. Under the Online Safety Act 2023 the platform, not Ofcom, is the body that must act on illegal content, and the illegal content safety duties have applied since 17 March 2025. Ofcom regulates how providers run their services as a whole and does not adjudicate individual takedown requests, so do not wait for Ofcom to deal with your own case.
You can use more than one route at once
Contacting the Revenge Porn Helpline does not stop you reporting to the police, and creating a StopNCII case does not stop either of those. The helpline can support you while you make a police report. The one point about order that matters is set out in the next section: note down where the material is before you block the account or ask for the material to be taken down, because both can cut off your own view of it.
Five steps to preserve the record safely
Police forces ask for evidence and a timeline when you report intimate image abuse. This is the order that gets you both without handling the image itself or delaying the report.
-
Step 1. Write down where it is before you touch anything.
The URL of the post, the platform, the account name and handle, the date and time you saw it, and any username or number the messages came from. This one list is what every route asks for first, and it survives even if everything else is deleted.
-
Step 2. Preserve the page around the image, not the image.
The page where it was posted, the profile, the threatening message, the demand for payment. That is what proves who did what and when, and it is what a capture is for. If anyone in the image may be under 18, stop here and let the police and the Internet Watch Foundation deal with the file.
-
Step 3. Do not block or delete yet.
Blocking an account often removes your own access to the conversation history, and deleting the chat removes it permanently. Preserve first, then block. If you have already blocked the account, that is completely understandable: capture whatever you can still see and tell the police.
-
Step 4. Report it: police, helpline, StopNCII, platform.
Report to the police on 101 or through your force's website, contact the Revenge Porn Helpline on 0345 6000 459, create a StopNCII case if you have the image or fear it will be shared, and use the platform's own reporting form. In England and Wales automatic reporting restrictions protect your identity, and in Scotland and Northern Ireland you can ask the officer taking your report how the equivalent restrictions apply.
-
Step 5. Keep the record somewhere only you can reach.
A folder on your own machine or an account the other person has never had access to. If the same person comes back under a new account, the dated record of the first posting shows that the new posting is part of a pattern.
How ProofSnap captures a page
Three steps, no forensic training required. ProofSnap preserves what a page looked like; it does not remove anything and it does not contact the platform.
Open the page and start the capture
Open the page, the profile and any messages in Chrome or Edge, and start the capture from the side panel. The whole page is captured, with the URL and the account recorded in the metadata.
The package is sealed
Every file is hashed with SHA-256 and the manifest is signed with an RSA-4096 key. On every plan except Essential the manifest hash is anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain through OpenTimestamps, and where your plan or credits include eIDAS it also carries a qualified electronic timestamp. The capture time is recorded in UTC, independent of your device clock.
Report, then keep the ZIP
Contact the Revenge Porn Helpline, use StopNCII if it applies to your case and report to the police. Keep the ZIP. If the matter goes further, the record is already in a verifiable form.
What is in the evidence package
A ProofSnap evidence package is one ZIP containing between 11 and 15 files, depending on the plan. Every file is hashed with SHA-256 and listed in a manifest signed with an RSA-4096 key. On every plan except Essential the manifest hash is anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain through OpenTimestamps, and where your plan or credits include eIDAS it also carries a qualified electronic timestamp. Anyone can check the package without installing anything.
Full-page screenshot
The whole page, not just the visible window, stitched and hashed.
Saved page source
The document as rendered at capture time, including the head, meta tags and structured data.
Extracted page text
Searchable plain text, so a quote can be found and cited without retyping.
Technical metadata
URL, page title, HTTP response headers, browser, operating system and the capture time in UTC.
Signed manifest
A SHA-256 hash of every file, signed with an RSA-4096 key whose public key is included in the package.
Blockchain timestamp
The manifest hash anchored to Bitcoin via OpenTimestamps, proving the package existed no later than the Bitcoin block time. Not included on the Essential plan.
Chain of custody and forensic log
A record of what happened during the capture, in the order it happened.
Evidence report as a PDF
A readable summary you can attach to an application, a notice or a report.
Verification instructions
Written steps plus scripts, so the other side can re-check the hashes offline.
Anyone can verify it, including the other side. Drop the ZIP onto the public Trust Verifier, and the hashes, signature and timestamp are checked. The ZIP itself is not uploaded, and the verification scripts inside the package re-check the hashes and signature offline, without ProofSnap.
Does a qualified timestamp count in a UK court?
In UK law it carries a statutory presumption, and it does so by virtue of UK domestic law, not EU law. The United Kingdom is not in the European Union, but the trust services chapter of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 was kept on the UK statute book at the end of the transition period, and since 1 January 2024 that body of law has been called assimilated law rather than retained EU law. Article 24A of the assimilated Regulation treats a qualified electronic timestamp from an EU qualified provider as qualified in the UK for the purposes of the presumption.
"A qualified electronic time stamp shall enjoy the presumption of the accuracy of the date and the time it indicates and the integrity of the data to which the date and time are bound."
Article 41(2), assimilated Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (legislation.gov.uk)
For a ProofSnap package captured on a plan or with credits that include eIDAS, this means the accuracy of the date and time of the timestamp, and the integrity of the manifest it is bound to, are presumed under that provision.
ProofSnap's qualified timestamps are issued by Disig a.s., a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List. The timestamp is only part of the picture. What a UK court weighs is whether a record can be shown to be what it claims to be, which is why the package also carries the SHA-256 hashes, the signed manifest and the independent blockchain anchor rather than relying on the timestamp alone. There is a fuller explanation on our page about qualified timestamps for UK courts.
Three ways to get the evidence
Prices are charged in USD. Approximate sterling figures are shown for guidance only, and your card issuer sets the actual rate.
One-off
$4.99 once
about £3.75
A SnapPack is a single up-front purchase for a set number of captures. No subscription, no auto-renewal, no trial. Best if you need to keep a record of one situation today.
Get a SnapPackOngoing matters
$8.99/month
about £6.75
For anyone who captures regularly: solicitors, HR teams, investigators and caseworkers. The 7-day free trial requires a credit card. Cancel at any time during the trial and you will not be charged.
Start the 7-day trialDone for you
$44.99 per URL
about £34
Send us the link and our team captures the page and produces the package for you, with nothing to install. Useful when you would rather not open the page again yourself, or when the capture should not come from a party to the case.
See the capture serviceProofSnap is not a law firm and does not give legal advice, and it does not remove content or issue takedown notices. Qualified timestamps are issued by Disig a.s., a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List.
Official sources
Every statute, figure and deadline on this page comes from the following official sources. You can check each one yourself.
- Sexual Offences Act 2003: the England and Wales offences of sharing, and threatening to share, an intimate image, inserted by the Online Safety Act 2023.
- Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 commencement regulations: the regulations bringing the purported intimate image offences into force on 6 February 2026.
- CPS: Communications Offences: prosecution guidance on the intimate image offences, the old offence they replaced and the automatic reporting restrictions.
- Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016: the Scottish offence of disclosing or threatening to disclose an intimate image.
- Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2016: the Northern Irish offence of disclosing, or threatening to disclose, private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress.
- Assimilated Regulation (EU) No 910/2014: the presumption attaching to a qualified electronic timestamp, and the recognition of EU qualified providers in UK law.
- Revenge Porn Helpline: the free UK service, run by SWGfL, that works with platforms to remove intimate images.
- Revenge Porn Helpline 2024 Annual Report (SWGfL): the source of the 90.9 per cent takedown rate and the 412,000 and 387,000 figures.
- StopNCII: hash-based blocking across partner platforms, without uploading the image.
- Ofcom: Protecting people from illegal harms online: the Illegal Harms Statement and Codes, and the 16 March and 17 March 2025 dates.
- Online Safety Act 2023: the Act itself.
Preserve the record before you block the account or ask for a takedown. Blocking can cut off your own access to the history, so the order matters. Never copy material involving anyone under 18. That safety point matters more than any feature on this page.
Common questions
Removal is the goal. Losing the record with it is not.
Preserve the page while it is still there, then report it to the police, the Revenge Porn Helpline and StopNCII. The record outlives the takedown. ProofSnap keeps the record; removal is done by the platform, the police, StopNCII or the helpline.