Germany’s federal cabinet approved a draft law on October 7 that would expand criminal protection against nonconsensual intimate imagery, including computer-generated sexualized images of identifiable people. The proposal also covers forms of digital abuse that do not involve AI, and would give people new court-supervised ways to seek information about anonymous users and stop serious violations of their rights online. It now goes to the Bundestag for consideration. None of the proposed changes is law yet.

The distinction between making an image and sharing it is central to the draft. A proposed replacement for section 184k of the Criminal Code would cover the unauthorized creation of, or making accessible to another person, certain real intimate images and computer-generated images that appear to show a specific person engaged in sexual activity or with specified unclothed body parts. The text covers private sharing with one other person as well as wider circulation. Its wording targets defined intimate content; it is not a general prohibition on making deepfakes.

The big change

The cabinet has moved a package of criminal and civil proposals into the parliamentary stage. Its image provision explicitly addresses fabricated sexualized depictions alongside real intimate recordings. Other provisions address voyeuristic images, identity misuse and digital surveillance. For people seeking civil remedies, the draft adds procedures requiring a judge’s order before certain user information is disclosed or a social media account is suspended. The legal effect depends on what Parliament ultimately passes and when any resulting law takes effect.

What the criminal proposals cover

The proposed section 184k also reaches unauthorized images of sexual activity or specified unclothed body parts. It includes recordings of covered body parts even when clothed, if the image is framed in a way that plainly aims to sexualize them. That provision is relevant to voyeuristic filming in places such as saunas or publicly accessible nude beaches. These rules concern recordings of people as well as generated images; the bill’s reach does not depend on AI use.

The cabinet draft adds a separate provision for accessing, acquiring or possessing without authorization an image recording of another person’s actual rape. It also proposes a criminal offence for making a computer-created or altered portrayal available to someone else when it falsely appears to depict a real event involving a person and is capable of seriously damaging that person’s reputation. This latter offence concerns distribution of deceptive content, not its creation alone. Another proposed offence addresses distributing reputation-damaging content while falsely assuming a real person’s identity. It does not require the content to be AI-generated.

The surveillance provision would cover repeated or continuous unauthorized monitoring of someone’s location or activity with information or communications technology, where the monitoring is capable of causing substantial harm. A GPS tracker is one example given by the government. These proposals sit in different sections of the draft and have distinct conditions; a label such as “deepfake law” misses much of the package.

Court orders and the next step

On the civil side, the draft would let a person seeking to pursue a claim ask a court to order disclosure of data held by a relevant online service or internet access provider. The bill lists information such as a stored name, address, email address and, where available, internet protocol data. It also proposes court orders to preserve evidence while a disclosure request is decided. In serious cases, a judge could order a temporary suspension of a social network account if that is needed to prevent further violations; a separate court order could require removal of unlawful content. These are conditional remedies, not automatic account bans or open access to user data.

The Bundestag must now debate the government draft and can change it. The cabinet text leaves the main commencement date to be filled in, specifying the first day of a quarter after promulgation. There is therefore no settled date on which these proposed protections will apply. The German Judges Association has warned, as reported by Tagesschau, that judicial staffing will affect enforcement.

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