UK Crime and Policing Act 2026 FAQs > “Incest” Content Ban
UK “Incest” Content Ban: FAQ for Platforms and Creators
This FAQ contains general information to help you understand the UK’s new "incest" content ban, not legal advice. It summarizes what the law, the government’s guidance, and other official sources say about the UK’s new ban on "incest" content, as of October 2026. Every business and every piece of content is different, so please talk to a UK lawyer about your situation.
Sections: The basics | What counts as “incest” content | Possession, publication, and existing content | Enforcement, penalties, and defenses | More information
The basics
Who does the law apply to?
Anyone who possesses or publishes "incest" content in the UK. The law says it is illegal to possess or publish it. There’s no exception based on who you are or why you have the content.*
FSC cannot give legal advice (especially on such a vague law), but our impression is that individuals and companies located in the UK that create or publish choking content are at highest risk. Companies not located in the UK that block UK users altogether, or otherwise prevent UK users from accessing content prohibited under UK law would likely face lower risk, but we cannot stress enough how important it is to talk to a UK lawyer about your specific content before November 6.
* If you are prosecuted, you may be able to argue in court that you had a legitimate reason for possessing or publishing it. (more)
Is family roleplay content banned in the UK?
It's a criminal offense in the UK to possess or publish adult content that "explicitly and realistically" depicts sex between certain relatives.
The government's guidance describes the incest offense as covering "penetrative sexual activity between people who a reasonable person would think are related, or pretending to be related." This includes:
familial relatives
step and foster relationships where one person is, or is pretending to be, under 18
What are the potential criminal penalties?
Publication can lead to up to 5 years' imprisonment. The maximum for possession is 2 years' imprisonment. Fines are also possible. Prosecutions need the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Will Ofcom enforce this law?
The new law makes possession or publication of “incest” content a priority offense under the Online Safety Act. Ofcom says it "will provide an update to our policy roadmap by the end of the year" regarding "new offences that make certain types of pornography content illegal." We anticipate this will involve a public consultation and lengthy drafting process.
What counts as “incest” content
The law lists which relationships are covered, but it's much less clear what it means for how law enforcement will determine whether performers are "pretending to be" related or under 18. We cannot stress enough how important it is to talk to a UK lawyer about your specific content before November 6.
Which relationships are covered at any age?
The law bans depictions of real or pretended sexual activity between an individual and their:
parent, grandparent, child, grandchild
brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister
uncle, aunt, nephew, niece
Note: "parent" includes an adoptive parent.
What about step and foster relationships?
According to the law, step and foster relationships are covered only where at least one person "was, or was pretending to be, under 18."
Are step-family storylines with adult characters covered?
It's not covered by this offense if everyone is clearly portrayed as an adult. How a court would judge whether someone is "pretending to be" under 18 isn't addressed.
What about cousins or in-laws?
They don't appear on the list of prohibited portrayals.
Does it have to show penetration to be illegal?
Yes. The law requires that the image portray, "in an explicit and realistic way", either:
penetration of a vagina or anus (with anything)
penetration of one's mouth with another's penis.
What does "pretending to be related" mean?
It's unclear. The law says that it applies if a reasonable person viewing the material would think that the performers were related, or pretending to be, in one of the ways described above.
Bizarrely, it also says that people "are not to be taken as pretending to be related if it is fanciful that they actually were or had been related in the way pretended."
What does "fanciful" mean?!
No one knows. The government says it carries its ordinary meaning, "generally understood to be contrastable to 'real'" and gives a single example of a fanciful scenario: "an adult man dressed in a nappy and pretending to be another person's baby."
Do titles, tags, and descriptions matter?
The law's test takes into account "any sound or information associated with" the content:
for possession, associated material in the possessor's possession;
for publication, material the publisher "publishes with" the content.
The government's equality assessment quotes titles like "real dad loves his very young daughter/virgin stepdaughter" as examples of the content it's targeting.
Titles, tags, dialogue, descriptions, and categories probably all count as "associated" information, but that's not explicitly spelled out in the law.
Does AI-generated content count?
Yes, if it's realistic. The guidance says the offenses "only capture pornography that shows people which appear, to a reasonable person, to be real."
Possession, publication, and existing content
What does "publish" mean?
The law defines publishing a piece of content as "giving or making it image available to another person by any means." Government guidance says that publishing "could include uploading, posting, sending, sharing or distributing an image" in the UK.
What does "possess" mean?
The government's guidance says possessing content generally means "having custody or control of it." That could include content that is "stored on a device, retained in a personal account or cloud, saved in files, or otherwise kept physically or virtually" in the United Kingdom.
⚠️ Creating content counts as possessing it. According to a government memo: "Once you create an image, you possess it."
What about content already on my site?
The guidance says: "Publication can also be a continuing act. If you have uploaded, posted or otherwise made an image covered by these offences available whether online or offline, you will need to remove it and stop making it available" to people in the UK before November 6, 2026.
What about copies we store but don't distribute?
According to the guidance: "Possession is a continuing act. If you already possess an image covered by these offences, you will need to permanently delete it or otherwise get rid of it before 6 November 2026." This may include backups, archives, and moderation queues if located or accessible in the UK.
Enforcement, penalties, and defenses
Who will enforce the law?
Starting November 6, 2026, the law will be enforced by a variety of bodies in the criminal legal system. Each does something different:
Police investigate suspected offenses.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides whether to bring charges.
Courts decide whether a specific piece of content violates the law.
Ofcom can issue fines for failure to prevent UK users from encountering illegal choking content under the Online Safety Act.
How are police investigations likely to arise?
That's impossible to predict. The best evidence we have for how the new law will be policed is how the 2009 "extreme pornography" law was implemented.
A 2017 study looked at 16 "extreme pornography" cases. All of the cases followed a “chance discovery.” The images were usually found while police executed a warrant for something else, and sometimes during visits to registered sex offenders’ homes or after a tip-off. The Metropolitan Police advise individuals to report "extreme pornographic images" to them.
The government's impact assessment bases its estimate of 87 annual prosecutions under the new law on existing possession of extreme pornography and obscene publications prosecution data. It does not break down how many of these are expected to stem from possession vs. publication.
Can creators who appear in the content still sell it?
No. The government was quite open about the fact that it wants to “generally prohibit the creation” of incest content, “or those pretending to be relatives,” and that it will target those who publish it “for commercial gain.” It also said the law “prohibits a person from publishing their own pornographic image.”
What other defenses are there?
The law offers three possible defenses for anyone charged with the offense:
that the person had a legitimate reason for publishing the content or sharing it with particular people
that the person had not seen the content and did not know or have any reason to suspect that it was illegal
that the person directly participated in the act portrayed, the act did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person, and the person only published the image to other persons who directly participated
What counts as a "legitimate reason" is unknown and having one of these defenses does not prevent you from being prosecuted.
My company is outside the UK. Does this apply to me?
Yes.
Can a company be prosecuted, or only individuals?
The law makes a company criminally liable when a senior manager commits an offense within their authority
More information
Where can I get more information about the law?
FSC consulted UK lawyer Myles Jackman for this article. He is an expert on the UK's obscenity and extreme pornography laws.
Where can I read the law and what the government's said about it?