Correspondence

Letter to Baroness Bertin: government response to the Independent Pornography Review

Published 27 February 2025

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
100 Parliament Street
London
SW1A 2BQ
United Kingdom

27 February 2025

Government response to the Bertin report on the Independent Pornography Review

Dear Baroness Bertin,

Thank you for your work as lead reviewer of the Independent Pornography Review and your extensive report on the regulation, legislation, and enforcement of pornography. Your review into the impact of online pornography provides the government with valuable insight into the issues, and we are grateful for the practical recommendations to address the significant challenges we face. We must act urgently to tackle the harms from illegal and harmful pornography online if we are to deliver our cross-government mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. We will carefully consider each of the recommendations in your report and provide a fuller response to each in due course, but we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the areas where we will take immediate action.

We are at a pivotal moment in the regulation of online platforms. The Online Safety Act 2023 brought in much needed protections by stopping children from accessing pornography online through age assurance measures and imposing duties on providers to tackle illegal content including extreme pornography.  We will continue to support Ofcom as they enforce these new measures and ensure online platforms adhere to the highest standards. We are determined to protect individuals online, particularly children.

Your review has revealed shocking detail about the prevalence of violent pornography online, and the extent to which it is influencing dangerous offline behaviours, including in young relationships. Graphic strangulation pornography is illegal but is not always being treated as such and instead remains widely accessible on mainstream pornography platforms. There is increasing evidence that ‘choking’ is becoming a common part of real-life sexual encounters despite the significant medical dangers associated with it. The government will take urgent action to ensure pornography platforms, law enforcement and prosecutors are taking all necessary steps to tackle this increasingly prevalent harm.

You have also found that more needs to be done to protect those online from being victimised by non-consensual content. The government is delivering our manifesto commitment to ban sexually explicit deepfakes: the Data (Use and Access) Bill introduces a new offence which will criminalise the creation of a purported intimate image (deepfake) of an adult without their consent. It will also criminalise asking someone to create a purported intimate image (deepfake) for you, regardless of where that person is based or whether the image is created.

We are introducing a package of offences in the Crime and Policing Bill to tackle the taking of intimate images without consent and the installation of equipment with intent to enable the taking of intimate images without consent. Through the offences at section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the law already captures situations where intimate images including deepfakes are shared without consent.

You have also identified a need for a more proactive law enforcement response to illegal pornography, and a greater understanding between pornography, sexual and violent offending and trafficking. We will work with the law enforcement community to look to take forward key recommendations in this area, including working with law enforcement partners to ensure these crimes are consistently tracked and recorded by the police and developing the evidence base on the links and prevalence of human trafficking in the pornography industry.

We are also deeply concerned, as you have identified, that misogynist attitudes are on the rise, particularly in online spaces. We must support our boys and young men to navigate this confusing space and reject and call out, sexist attitudes both in the online and offline world. Changing such attitudes will take time as it requires a cultural shift, but we cannot let down our children by doing nothing. We will use every lever within government to achieve our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. We would welcome your continued support in championing this work.

Your report offers an invaluable perspective that substantially contributes to ongoing policy considerations in government. We will publish your report and commit in Parliament via a written ministerial statement to provide an update on the work of government on the issues raised in your report in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Baroness Jones
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Future Digital Economy and Online Safety

Alex Davies-Jones MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls

Jess Phillips MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Home Office, Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls