Ireland's Coco's Law criminalises sharing intimate images without consent

Ireland has enacted the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2024, known as Coco's Law, creating criminal offences for the non-consensual taking, sharing or threatening to share intimate images, with penalties including up to seven years imprisonment. The legislation addresses a rise in image-based sexual abuse and sextortion targeting children and women, and grants courts power to order the removal of intimate images from online platforms. Named after Nicole Fox Fenlon, a young woman who died by suicide after intimate images were shared without her consent, the law also establishes aggravated offences where the victim is a child or the offence is committed for profit or to cause distress.

Criminalising the outcome provides a remedial mechanism but does not prevent the initial coercion or image capture that precedes distribution. Anti-sextortion detection that identifies the characteristic escalation from flattery to threat in real time within a direct-message exchange can block the conversation before an image is obtained or shared. Guardii's AI sextortion module, operating across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, intercepts coercive requests for intimate content as the pattern develops, surfacing the threatened child to a parent or school safeguarding lead and enabling rapid escalation to law enforcement where a criminal threat is imminent. Early interception addresses the harm Coco's Law was enacted to remedy, before an image exists to be distributed.