Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images: Art. 197.7 CP

Sexting —the voluntary exchange of sexual images or videos through messaging apps or social networks— is, between consenting adults, perfectly lawful conduct. The criminal problem does not arise from sending the image but from what happens next: when that private material is distributed to third parties without the consent of the person depicted. That is where Art. 197.7 of the Spanish Criminal Code (CP) comes into play, the provision that punishes so-called "revenge porn". As criminal defence lawyers specializing in privacy offences, we explain where the criminal threshold lies, what penalties apply and how each case is defended.

Where the Crime Begins

It is worth starting from a clear premise: consensual sexting between adults is not a crime. Each person's sexual freedom and privacy protect the voluntary exchange of intimate content. The conduct crosses the criminal threshold, essentially, in three scenarios:

• Distribution without consent of the material by whoever received it (Art. 197.7 CP), the central focus of this article.
• Involvement of minors in the content, which triggers far more serious offences (Arts. 182 and 189 CP).
• Instrumental use of the images to blackmail the victim, known as sextortion (Arts. 169 and 243 CP).

The protected legal interest is personal privacy (Art. 18.1 of the Spanish Constitution) and informational self-determination: each person's right to control who accesses their most private sphere. The fact that the victim voluntarily shared an image with a particular person does not mean they waived their privacy towards the rest of the world; consent is always limited and revocable, and is confined to the recipient and the context in which it was given.

The Offence Under Art. 197.7 CP

Art. 197.7 CP, introduced by Organic Law 1/2015, punishes anyone who, without authorization of the person concerned, distributes, discloses or transfers to third parties intimate images or audiovisual recordings that were obtained with that person's consent in a home or any other place beyond the reach of others, where the disclosure seriously undermines their privacy.

The offence therefore requires three elements that the defence always examines closely:

• Lawful prior obtaining with consent. The perpetrator had consensual access to the material in a private setting (a partner received it, it was recorded by mutual agreement, and so on).
• Subsequent unauthorized distribution. What is missing is consent to disclose, not to obtain.
• Serious harm to privacy. Not just any impact is enough; the disclosure must seriously harm the victim's intimate sphere.

The penalty is three months to one year in prison or a fine of six to twelve months.

It is worth highlighting the feature that distinguishes this provision from other privacy offences: what matters is not how the image was obtained but how it was distributed. In the classic disclosure of secrets (Art. 197.1 CP), the reproach falls on the unlawful seizure of the material; here, by contrast, the material reached the perpetrator with full consent —the victim sent the image or consented to the recording— and the harm arises from the subsequent disclosure. That difference has first-order practical consequences: the victim did not "make a mistake" by sharing their intimacy with someone they trusted, and criminal law protects precisely that trust against whoever betrays it. For that reason, the settled case law of the Spanish Supreme Court insists that consent to obtain the image in no way presupposes consent to distribute it.

The Recipient Who Re-Distributes Is Also Liable

One point that often comes as a surprise: Art. 197.7 CP does not only punish whoever leaks the material for the first time. It also expressly covers anyone who, having received it, then re-distributes it, with a penalty of a fine of one to three months. Each act of distribution is a separate offence, so the chain of forwards —so common in messaging groups— generates successive and independent liabilities.

The flip side is equally important for the defence: mere private storage of the image, without distribution, does not fall within the offence. Whoever keeps the content but does not share it does not, by that conduct alone, commit the offence under Art. 197.7 CP. This distinction is decisive in practice, because it allows the true person responsible for the distribution to be separated from those who simply received the material in a group and did not pass it on. The prosecution must prove the specific act of forwarding attributable to each person; merely having been part of the chain is not enough.

Aggravated Sub-Types

The penalty is imposed in its upper half where one of the following circumstances is present:

• The perpetrator is the spouse or a person who is or has been linked to the victim by an analogous relationship of affection, even without cohabitation —the classic scenario of the spurned former partner.
• The victim is a minor or a person with a disability in need of special protection.
• The act is committed for a profit motive.

These aggravating factors reflect the legislator's view that the betrayal of the trust inherent in an emotional relationship, and the economic exploitation of the intimate material, are more reprehensible. In the case of a former partner, the reproach is intensified because access to the images arose precisely from the intimacy shared during the relationship; distribution after the break-up turns that trust into a weapon. Where the material is sold or uploaded to pay sites, the profit motive turns the victim's privacy into merchandise, which justifies the tougher criminal response.

When Minors Are Involved

The picture changes completely if a minor appears in the images. Here sexting ceases to be a privacy problem and becomes a far more serious offence:

• Art. 189 CP punishes child pornography with one to five years in prison in its basic form. The distribution of intimate material involving a minor falls within this provision, regardless of who generated it.
• Art. 182 CP punishes with six months to two years in prison anyone who makes a minor under sixteen witness sexual acts for sexual purposes —one to three years if those acts amount to an offence against sexual freedom— which applies, for example, to sending sexual content to a minor.

It bears repeating: where minors are involved, this is no longer "sexting that got leaked" but a set of stand-alone offences of much greater severity. A particularly delicate phenomenon is that of a minor who voluntarily shares intimate images with another minor: the legal response must weigh the best interests of the child and avoid criminalizing conduct typical of adolescence. But once the material circulates it is beyond control and may end up in the hands of adults, at which point their criminal liability is full.

Sextortion

The third threshold is the use of the material as an instrument of blackmail. Sextortion —demanding money, services or acts under the threat of distributing the images— is not an offence with a name of its own; it is prosecuted through existing provisions:

• Conditional threats (Art. 169 CP): one to five years in prison where the intended aim is achieved, and six months to three years where it is not. The penalty is imposed in its upper half where the threat is made in writing, by telephone or by any means of reproduction.
• Extortion (Art. 243 CP): one to five years in prison where, for profit, the victim is compelled to perform or refrain from a legal act or transaction to the detriment of their assets.

Sextortion is especially serious because it adds the coercion of the victim's will to the harm to their privacy. In its digital form, it usually begins with an apparently innocent contact on social media that leads to an exchange of images and, once the material is obtained, to a demand under threat. The concurrence between the privacy offence and threats or extortion is resolved under the rules on concurrence of offences, which calls for careful classification by both prosecution and defence.

Digital Forms and the Regulatory Framework

Non-consensual distribution today takes very different forms: publication on open networks, distribution in closed messaging groups, uploading to pornographic websites, and even the creation of intimate montages using artificial intelligence (deepfakes), whose fit within Art. 197.7 CP is disputed since there is no pre-existing real image. Alongside these are upskirting and downblousing, the covert capture of images under a person's clothing, which are channelled through Art. 197.5 CP.

The regulatory framework has been progressively reinforced through successive reforms —Organic Laws 1/2015, 8/2021, 10/2022 and 1/2025 on electronic evidence— and through Directive (EU) 2024/1385 on combating violence against women, which requires Member States to effectively criminalize the non-consensual distribution of intimate content. This legislative evolution responds to a growing phenomenon and to the need to adapt the offence to technologies that multiply the reach and speed of distribution: what once stayed within a small circle can now reach thousands of people in a matter of minutes, exponentially aggravating the harm to the victim.

Lines of Defence

Faced with a charge of non-consensual distribution of intimate images, the defence is built on four pillars:

• Consent to distribute. Arguing whether consent, express or implied, existed not only to obtain the image but to disclose it.
• Contesting digital authorship. An account, a device or an IP address do not, by themselves, identify the author; computer forensic expert evidence (analysis of devices, metadata and traceability) is essential.
• Digital chain of custody. Distinguishing a forensic image with a hash function —which guarantees integrity— from simple, easily manipulated screenshots, and weighing the use of a notarial record.
• Absence of serious harm. Arguing that the disclosure did not reach the severity the offence requires.

None of these lines is generic: each depends on the specific facts —how the material was obtained, to whom it was distributed, through which channels it spread and what technical trace it left. A defence built on the question of consent will not transfer to a case in which authorship is the decisive issue, and vice versa. That is why an early and rigorous analysis of the digital evidence is decisive from the very first steps of the proceedings.

The firm frequently takes on a dual role: the defence of the accused and the representation of the victim, which also requires pursuing urgent interim measures for the removal of the content in order to halt its spread as early as possible. The sooner the evidence is preserved and removal is sought, the greater the chance of containing the harm.

Contact the Firm

Alonso Sala is a firm dedicated exclusively to criminal law, based at calle Velázquez 27 in Madrid and providing coverage throughout Spain. We analyze every case of non-consensual distribution of intimate images —the classification between Art. 197.7 CP and the concurrent offences, the strength of the digital evidence and the procedural strategy— whether in the defence of the accused or in the victim's private prosecution, always with technical rigor and the utmost discretion.