Creating AI sexualised images to become criminal offence this week

Creating non-consensual intimate images with artificial intelligence (AI) will become a criminal offence this week, the technology secretary has announced.

Liz Kendall said this will include requesting the creation of the images. Hours before, media watchdog Ofcom launched a formal investigation into X's AI tool, Grok, over reports it is being used to create sexualised imagery of women and children.

The Data (Use and Access) Act was passed last year, with sections of the act being implemented slowly. But Ms Kendall said the section making it a criminal offence to create or request the creation of non-consensual intimate images will be brought forward to this week.

She also announced the government will criminalise apps which allow users to create nude fake images of people. The Crime and Policing Bill, which is going through parliament, will make it a criminal offence for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual internet images.

Ms Kendall said this would be "targeting the problem at its source". She denied it would be restricting freedom of speech, and "is about tackling violence against women and girls, it's about upholding basic British values of decency and respect and ensuring the standards we expect offline are upheld online".

"And it is about exercising our sovereign power and responsibility to uphold the laws of this land". On Monday evening, Sir Keir Starmer told a meeting of Labour MPs he would "control" Grok if X could not, as he described the AI images as "absolutely disgusting and shameful".

Ofcom contacted X on Monday last week and set a firm deadline of last Friday to "explain what steps it has taken to comply with its duties to protect its users in the UK". The company replied by the deadline, and Ofcom has since carried out an "expedited assessment of available evidence as a matter of urgency".

It added the formal investigation will look into whether X, owned by tech tycoon Elon Musk, has "failed to comply with its legal obligations under the Online Safety Act". The regulator said: "There have been deeply concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images of people - which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography - and sexualised images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material." Ms Kendall said: "It is vital that Ofcom complete this investigation swiftly because the public - and most importantly the victims - will not accept any delay.

"The content created and shared using Grok in recent days has been deeply disturbing." Downing Street suggested the government was open to ending its use of X if the platform did not act on concerns about its AI chatbot, adding that "all options are on the table". Asked whether the government would leave X, the prime minister's official spokesman said: "Our focus today and over the last week has been fully on protecting children and ensuring this vile content is taken down immediately." Read more from Sky News:Trump insists US will acquire GreenlandAll of the winners from the Golden Globes The use of Grok to create sexually explicit content has sparked a wave of concern among ministers who have expressed support for a UK ban if Ofcom decides to block access to the platform.

But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she believed banning X was the "wrong answer". Speaking before the investigation was launched, she said: "I'm not even sure what question it is that they're answering.

"What we are seeing is a Labour government that did not have a plan, and they're just throwing out random policies, probably to distract from the fact that they're putting businesses in a very difficult position." Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said US vice president JD Vance was sympathetic to efforts to tackle the Grok-produced images, although Donald Trump's free speech tsar Sarah Rogers later likened the UK's threats to Vladimir Putin's Russia. Mr Lammy, who met Mr Vance in the US on Thursday, told The Guardian he raised the issue of Grok "and the horrendous, horrific situation in which this new technology is allowing deepfakes and the manipulation of images of women and children, which is just absolutely abhorrent".

"He agreed with me that it was entirely unacceptable," Mr Lammy said. In response to ministers' threats, Mr Musk has accused the UK government of being "fascist" and trying to curb free speech.

Responding to a post on X claiming the UK arrests more people for social media posts than "any other country on Earth.