In 2025, non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) has become one of the most urgent threats to personal reputation. Generative AI tools now make it possible to fabricate highly convincing explicit content from ordinary photos, pushing the problem from isolated incidents to a systemic, global challenge.

Our report explores:

• The arms race online
  Platforms and detection technologies—such as hash-matching and watermarking—offer some protection, but remain largely reactive and inconsistent, leaving offenders one step ahead.

  
  

• How laws are catching up

  1. European Union: An integrated framework through the DSA, GDPR, and AI Act.

  2. United Kingdom: The Online Safety Act paired with strong case law.

  3. United States: A fragmented patchwork of state laws under the shadow of unresolved Section 230 reform.

     
     

• The human toll
  Beyond legal frameworks, NCII leaves victims with severe psychological harm, career setbacks, and social isolation, made worse by the permanence of digital content.

• Strategies that work

  Effective response requires a layered approach: rapid takedowns, search suppression and SEO, continuous monitoring, evidence preservation, legal leverage, and proactive reputation building. Looking ahead, the barrier to producing synthetic NCII will only continue to drop. That means individuals must start treating online reputation as personal capital—something to protect, invest in, and strengthen for the long term.