On October 30, 2026, two neighbouring legislatures moved against AI-generated sexual imagery on the same day. In Edinburgh, the Scottish Parliament's Criminal Justice Committee launched a short inquiry into AI-generated intimate image abuse and deepfake pornography. In Dublin, the Irish Labour Party confirmed that the Dáil will debate its private member's bill this coming Thursday, November 5. The bill would criminalise generating non-consensual sexual images and would also reach the companies whose tools make or spread them.

Why It Matters

The legal standard in English-speaking jurisdictions is moving from *sharing* a sexual deepfake to *creating* one, and from punishing users to holding platforms and executives liable. [Queensland](/stories/queensland-deepfake-creation-offence-bill) introduced a creation offence last week, [Denmark](/stories/denmark-deepfake-likeness-bill) is proposing likeness rights, and England's [Crime and Policing Act](/stories/uk-crime-policing-act-royal-assent) already includes personal liability for executives over NCII. Kelly's "facilitate the generation" wording is aimed at tool providers, which means general-purpose image models and AI companion apps, not just dedicated nudify sites. For legitimate adult and AI-intimacy businesses, the compliance question is now about generation, not just distribution: whether models can produce a real, identifiable person, whether consent is checked for likeness, and what records exist. Platforms operating in Ireland are exposed in a particular way, because so many big tech EU headquarters are in Dublin. Executive criminal liability there would affect far more than Ireland's own user base. Watch the government's response to the Labour bill on November 5 and the Holyrood committee's call-for-evidence deadline.

Scotland. Committee convener David Linden MSP said members are "deeply concerned by the rapid rise of non-consensual AI-generated intimate images and deepfake pornography which cause huge distress to victims." The inquiry will look at the impact on victims, whether current laws and powers are adequate, and how well offences are reported, investigated and prosecuted in practice. The committee says it is not a general review of AI or online harms. It is focused specifically on intimate-image abuse, and it is asking for evidence from people who have been affected as well as from organisations, academics and practitioners.

Ireland. The Irish Examiner reports that Labour TD Alan Kelly's bill would make it an offence to generate "an intimate image of another person without the other person's consent, for the purpose of distributing or publishing the image." It would also be an offence to "encourage, knowingly cause, or facilitate the generation" of such an image. Offences would carry up to seven years in prison. Kelly wants it to apply to senior executives of social media companies in Ireland and abroad. "Companies have to be held criminally liable. The idea of fines is a joke," he said, pointing to this year's Grok controversy and arguing that Ireland can't wait for EU action. He also wants a specialist Garda unit. The Oireachtas already lists a separate private member's bill from Sinn Féin TDs Máire Devine and Matt Carthy, Bill 8 of 2026, to prohibit creating non-consensual intimate or harmful imagery. Pressure on the government is coming from more than one party.

The Westminster version is in the courts. Labour MP Jess Asato, who campaigned for 18 months against nudification apps, is suing xAI in the High Court for misuse of private information and UK GDPR breaches. She says Grok produced sexualised images of her, and she is asking for a deletion order and damages. These are allegations and no order has been granted (TechTimes, citing WIRED, Oct 28).

Sources

Update — 2026-11-02

Initial entry — story first created.

Update — 2026-11-08

Ireland's government won't oppose the bill. At the Dáil debate on November 5, 2026, Minister of State at the Department of Justice Colm Brophy said the Government would not oppose Labour TD Alan Kelly's bill amending the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act. He said its aims match the coalition's "zero-tolerance approach" to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. Brophy confirmed that Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan had won Cabinet approval for that position the same week (RTÉ). Kelly told the chamber the bill would "explicitly cover sexual abuse images that someone generates or alters using AI." It would criminalise generating them without consent for publication or distribution, and make it an offence to encourage or knowingly facilitate their generation. He named X, Meta, TikTok and Google and argued that fines are built "into their baseline," so executives must face criminal liability (RTÉ; Tipp FM). Kelly said the bill was revised to cover the kind of nudification Grok enabled nine months ago.

What changed: A private member's bill that the government doesn't oppose passes second stage and goes to committee. That makes it a live legislative vehicle rather than an opposition statement, although it can still be amended heavily or stall in committee. The provision to watch is executive criminal liability. Many of the largest platforms have their EU headquarters in Dublin, so liability attached to Irish-based executives would matter well beyond Ireland's user base. Ireland's move also lines up with the EU AI Act's new ban on intimate-image generation of identifiable people, which applies from December 2.

New Sources