New Stalking and Harassment Law to tackle 'intimate' deepfakes

Friday, 23 May 2025 17:20

Jersey's Justice and Home Affairs department is working on a new law to tackle stalking and harassment, which will include making 'intimate' deepfakes of people an offence.

The law is being created to 'crack down' on online stalking and 'traditional' stalking.

Minister for Justice and Home Affairs Mary Le Hegarat announced this whilst speaking about what her department is doing to ensure the safety of children online.

The deputy says online harms to children are ever evolving, and she is committed to ensuring they are protected.

"The subject links closely to the ongoing work to tackle the issue of violence against women and girls, and the recommendations made by the VAWG taskforce, which are being acted on.

"We are making good progress on work to develop new legislation, which is a priority for me.

"Relevant to issues surrounding online harms, we are developing new offences that will respond to intimate image abuse, including sending unsolicited images and the creation and sharing of sexually explicit deepfake images."

Justice and Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat

The department is looking at how other jurisdictions are approaching the issues to help develop Jersey's legislation.

Recommendation 11 of the VAWG Taskforce Report recommends that the government introduce 'intimate image abuse offences'.

Justice and Home Affairs is developing offences which will include:

An offence to make an intimate image of another person without consent,
An offence to make a deepfake intimate image without consent,
An offence to share an intimate image or a deepfake intimate image without consent,
An offence to threaten to share an intimate image or a deepfake intimate image without consent,
An offence to send an unsolicited image without consent.

These offences will be inserted into the Sexual Offences (Jersey) Law 2018.