Sexual Offences Act 2003

[F1 66D Sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film: interpretation E+W

(1) This section applies for the purposes of sections 66B and 66C.

(2) A person “shares” something if the person, by any means, gives or shows it to another person or makes it available to another person.

(3) But a provider of an internet service by means of which a photograph or film is shared is not to be regarded as a person who shares it.

(4) “Photograph” and “film” have the same meaning as in section 66A (see subsections (3) to (5) of that section).

(5) Except where a photograph or film falls within subsection (8), a photograph or film shows, or appears to show, another person in an intimate state if it shows or appears to show—

(a) the person participating or engaging in an act which a reasonable person would consider to be a sexual act,

(b) the person doing a thing which a reasonable person would consider to be sexual,

(c) all or part of the person’s exposed genitals, buttocks or breasts,

(d) the person in an act of urination or defecation, or

(e) the person carrying out an act of personal care associated with the person’s urination, defecation or genital or anal discharge.

(6) For the purposes of subsection (5)(c) the reference to all or part of a person’s “exposed” genitals, buttocks or breasts includes—

(a) a reference to all or part of the person’s genitals, buttocks or breasts visible through wet or otherwise transparent clothing,

(b) the case where all or part of the person’s genitals, buttocks or breasts would be exposed but for the fact that they are covered only with underwear, and

(c) the case where all or part of the person’s genitals, buttocks or breasts would be exposed but for the fact that they are obscured, provided that the area obscured is similar to or smaller than an area that would typically be covered by underwear worn to cover a person’s genitals, buttocks or breasts (as the case may be).

(7) In subsection (6)(c) “obscured” means obscured by any means, other than by clothing that a person is wearing, including, in particular, by an object, by part of a person’s body or by digital alteration.

(8) A photograph or film falls within this subsection if (so far as it shows or appears to show a person in an intimate state) it shows or appears to show something, other than breastfeeding, that is of a kind ordinarily seen in public.

(9) For the purposes of subsection (8) “breastfeeding” includes the rearranging of clothing in the course of preparing to breastfeed or having just finished breastfeeding.]

Textual Amendments

F1 Ss. 66B-66D inserted (E.W.) (31.1.2024) by Online Safety Act 2023 (c. 50), ss. 188, 240(1); S.I. 2024/31, reg. 2