If someone shares your nude or sexually explicit photos or videos without your permission, nonconsensual intimate imagery laws now give you several ways to fight back: federal and state criminal charges against the person responsible, a federal civil lawsuit that can recover up to $150,000 per violation plus attorney’s fees, and a right to have online platforms remove the content within 48 hours of a written notice. The federal landscape changed significantly in 2025 with the Take It Down Act, and every state and the District of Columbia now has a law of its own.
What Counts as a Violation
The conduct at the core of every one of these laws is the same: distributing someone’s nude or sexually explicit image without their permission. The image has to depict nudity or sexual activity, and the person has to be identifiable, whether from their face, a tattoo, or other recognizable features. If no one can tell who is in the content, both criminal prosecution and a civil claim become much harder.
Consent is narrow. Agreeing to be photographed, or sending a photo to one person, is not agreement to have that photo posted online or forwarded to anyone else. Courts look at whether the person depicted had a reasonable expectation of privacy when the image was taken or first shared. Hidden-camera footage, images from private moments, and photos exchanged within a relationship all meet that standard.
Intent requirements vary. The federal Take It Down Act requires proof that the person who published the image either intended to cause harm or actually caused psychological, financial, or reputational harm. Many state laws take a different approach and require only that the distributor knew or should have known the person depicted had not consented to public disclosure. In those states, even careless sharing can be a crime.
Federal Criminal Law: The Take It Down Act
Signed on May 19, 2025, the Take It Down Act amends the Communications Act to create seven distinct criminal offenses covering both authentic intimate images and AI-generated deepfakes, with separate categories for adult and minor victims and for both publication and threats to publish.1Congress.gov. S.146 – TAKE IT DOWN Act Text
For offenses involving adult victims, the government must prove that the person who published the image knew or should have known the depicted individual had a reasonable expectation of privacy, that the depicted activity was not voluntarily exposed in a public setting, that the content is not a matter of public concern, and that the publication either intended to cause harm or actually caused harm. For imagery involving minors, the standard is different: the government must show intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade the minor, or to gratify someone’s sexual desire.1Congress.gov. S.146 – TAKE IT DOWN Act Text
Convictions carry imprisonment, fines, and mandatory restitution to the victim.2Congress.gov. S.146 – TAKE IT DOWN Act One important limit: the Take It Down Act does not include a private right of action. You cannot use it to sue the person responsible directly. For money damages, the route is the separate federal civil statute discussed further down.
The 48-Hour Platform Removal Rule
The Take It Down Act also imposes obligations on online platforms, with a compliance deadline of May 19, 2026. Any website or app that primarily hosts user-generated content must set up a notice-and-removal process. When a victim submits a written notice identifying the content and stating a good-faith belief that it was published without consent, the platform must remove it as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the notice. The platform must also make reasonable efforts to find and remove identical copies.3Congress.gov. The TAKE IT DOWN Act – A Federal Law Prohibiting Nonconsensual Intimate Visual Depictions
The Federal Trade Commission enforces these platform requirements, treating a failure to reasonably comply as an unfair or deceptive trade practice. Many major platforms already honor removal requests under their own policies ahead of the 2026 deadline.
State Criminal Laws
All 50 states and Washington, D.C. have enacted statutes specifically addressing the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images. The penalties vary widely. Some states classify a first offense as a misdemeanor with penalties that may include up to a year in jail and fines in the range of $1,000 to $2,500. Others treat it as a felony from the start, especially when the perpetrator distributed the content for financial gain, when the victim was a minor, or when the offender has prior convictions for similar conduct. Felony-level penalties can include multi-year prison sentences and fines above $10,000.
A smaller number of states require convicted offenders to register as sex offenders, typically when the imagery involves extreme content or a pattern of predatory behavior. Courts may also impose counseling or restrictions on internet use as conditions of probation. Because the laws differ so much from state to state, the specific exposure a person faces depends heavily on where the offense occurred or where the victim lives.
Suing the Person Responsible
The federal civil remedy for victims lives in a separate statute. Congress created it in the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 and codified it at 15 U.S.C. § 6851.4Congress.gov. Federal Civil Action for Disclosure of Intimate Images Anyone whose intimate images were disclosed without consent, through any means of interstate commerce, can sue the person responsible in federal district court.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 6851 – Civil Action Relating to Disclosure of Intimate Images
You can recover actual damages or, if specific financial losses are hard to quantify, liquidated damages of $150,000 per violation. The statute also awards litigation costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees. Beyond money, a court can issue injunctions ordering the offender to stop distributing the images, delete all copies, and actively work to remove the content from online platforms.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 6851 – Civil Action Relating to Disclosure of Intimate Images
The liquidated damages figure matters because the harm from image-based abuse (emotional, social, professional) is notoriously hard to price. The $150,000 floor means you can bring a viable claim without proving every dollar of loss.
The statute does not cover every disclosure. Good-faith reports to law enforcement, disclosures made as part of a legal proceeding or for medical education or treatment, and reports of unlawful content are protected. Content that qualifies as a matter of public concern is excluded, and so are disclosures reasonably intended to help the person depicted. Commercial pornographic content falls outside the statute unless it was produced through force, fraud, or coercion.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 6851 – Civil Action Relating to Disclosure of Intimate Images
Deepfakes and AI-Generated Images
Generative AI makes it possible to create convincing fake nude images of real people from a clothed photograph. The Take It Down Act addresses this directly by treating what it calls “digital forgeries” as a separate category of criminal offense. A digital forgery is any intimate visual depiction of an identifiable person created or altered using software, AI, or other technological means.3Congress.gov. The TAKE IT DOWN Act – A Federal Law Prohibiting Nonconsensual Intimate Visual Depictions
The criminal elements for digital forgeries are slightly different. Instead of proving a reasonable expectation of privacy, the government must show the forgery was published without the depicted person’s consent. The remaining elements track the authentic-image offense: the content must not depict something voluntarily exposed in public, must not be a matter of public concern, and the publication must be intended to cause or actually cause harm.1Congress.gov. S.146 – TAKE IT DOWN Act Text
Civil coverage is less settled. The federal civil remedy under 15 U.S.C. § 6851 was written before deepfakes became widespread, and whether AI-generated imagery qualifies as an “intimate visual depiction” under that statute is an open legal question. The DEFIANCE Act, which would have created an explicit federal civil cause of action for deepfake victims, passed the Senate in 2024 but stalled in the House.6Congress.gov. S.3696 – DEFIANCE Act of 2024 For now, criminal protection against AI-generated imagery is stronger than civil protection at the federal level.
When AI-generated imagery depicts a minor, existing federal child exploitation laws apply regardless of whether the depicted person is real. Federal statutes define prohibited material to include realistic computer-generated images of sexually explicit conduct involving minors.7Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Child Sexual Abuse Material Created by Generative AI and Similar Online Tools is Illegal
Why You Usually Can’t Sue the Platform
When intimate images show up on social media or another website, it is natural to want to hold that site responsible. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act generally blocks that path. It says that no provider of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher of content posted by someone else.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 230 – Protection for Private Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material In practice, you cannot sue the platform for hosting the images. The legal target is the person who uploaded them.
The Take It Down Act does not change this for victims. Its platform removal rules are enforced by the FTC, not through private lawsuits. Whether Section 230 shields platforms from FTC enforcement under the new law is a question courts have not yet resolved.3Congress.gov. The TAKE IT DOWN Act – A Federal Law Prohibiting Nonconsensual Intimate Visual Depictions An exception to Section 230 exists when a platform actively helped create the offending content rather than merely hosting it, but that is a narrow set of cases.
Getting the Content Taken Down
Legal rights give you leverage. Removal is a separate, practical fight.
Report to the Platform
Start with the site where the content appears. Most major social platforms have dedicated reporting flows for nonconsensual intimate imagery, separate from general abuse reports. Once the Take It Down Act’s platform obligations take full effect in May 2026, covered platforms must remove flagged content within 48 hours of a written notice and make reasonable efforts to remove identical copies.3Congress.gov. The TAKE IT DOWN Act – A Federal Law Prohibiting Nonconsensual Intimate Visual Depictions
Remove From Google Search Results
Even after the host site removes content, cached copies can keep appearing in search results. Google has a specific process for removing nonconsensual intimate images from its search results. The subject of the content, or an authorized representative, can submit a removal request through Google’s content removal form, and Google evaluates it against its personal content policies.9Google Support. Remove Personal Sexual Images From Google Search Results
Block Re-Uploads With StopNCII.org
StopNCII.org helps prevent re-uploads across participating platforms. The system generates a digital fingerprint, called a hash, directly on your device, without ever uploading the actual image. That hash is shared with participating platforms, which use it to automatically detect and remove matching content. The system periodically scans for new uploads.10StopNCII.org. How StopNCII.org Works It only works on platforms that have partnered with StopNCII.org.
DMCA Takedown Notices
If you took the photo or video yourself, you likely own the copyright, which gives you access to the DMCA takedown process. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, you can send a notice to any online service provider hosting your copyrighted material, and the provider must remove it or risk losing its safe harbor protection.11U.S. Copyright Office. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act If someone else took the photo, that person holds the copyright, and the DMCA route is not available to you.
Preserve the Evidence First
Before you request any takedowns, preserve everything. This is where many victims make a costly mistake: they rush to get images removed, which is completely understandable, and in the process destroy the evidence they need for criminal prosecution or a civil lawsuit.
Save the webpage as a PDF, take screenshots that show the full URL and the date, and if possible use a second phone or camera to record video of the entire page as you scroll through it. Download any video content. Keep copies in at least two formats and three locations, such as a USB drive, a secure cloud folder, and a printed copy. If the content includes conversations or messages from the person who shared the images, save those in full, even if your own responses are unflattering. A complete record is worth more than a flattering one.
Once your documentation is secure, report the content to the platform, file a report with local law enforcement, and consider contacting the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center if the content crossed state lines or appeared on multiple sites. Those steps build the foundation for both criminal charges and a civil lawsuit if you decide to pursue one.