The European Union is set to ban artificial intelligence tools that generate child sexual abuse material and non-consensual explicit images of adults.
Negotiators from the European Parliament and Council agreed on Thursday to prohibit these AI systems, pending formal adoption into law.
This formalisation is expected before early August, covering images, video, and audio. The ban applies to AI systems on the EU market intended to create such content or lacking reasonable safety measures. Companies have until 2 December to ensure their systems comply.
This forms part of a wider agreement on AI tools.
Irish MEP Michael McNamara, who is co-rapporteur for the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee, said: “We secured a ban on nudification applications, one of our key demands.
“We fought for it because non-consensual intimate imagery is a systemic harm being industrialised by AI and in which the overwhelming majority of victims are women and girls.”
Mr McNamara said it will be the first time such a ban has been enshrined in EU AI law.
“This deal delivers real protections for EU citizens and I am proud of what we have achieved. The European Parliament had a chance to act for women and children and we took it.”
The Internet Watch Foundation recently said that in 2025 there had been a more than 260-fold increase in AI-generated child sexual abuse videos from the year before.
Video models, nudification apps, subscription platforms and agentic AI systems were enabling offenders to produce and distribute illegal content at scale, the watchdog warned, allowing them to manipulate images of real children and simulate explicit chats with child characters.
Social media platforms will have to remove any non-consensual images reported within 48 hours under the new Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently in the final stages of legislation.
Those who don’t risk hefty fines or having their services blocked in the UK. Nudification tools used for AI deepfakes will be banned under the new rules.
Victims of NCII will have up to three years to report the crime, up from the current six months.
While the Crime and Policing Bill looks set to crack down on NCII, experts are warning that platforms must do more the tackle the growing harm.