Revenge Porn: the Non-Consensual Sharing of Intimate Images (Art. 197.7 CP)

Revenge porn — or the non-consensual sharing of intimate images — consists of sharing, without authorisation, images or recordings of an intimate nature that were obtained, at the time, with the consent of the person affected, usually within a relationship. It is specifically defined as an offence by Art. 197.7 of the Criminal Code, introduced by the 2015 reform. As criminal defence lawyers specialising in the sharing of intimate images, we explain what this provision punishes, its penalties, why the initial consent does not exempt from liability, the overlap with sextortion and extortion, the routes open to the victim, and the lines of defence.

What Is Revenge Porn (Art. 197.7 CP)

Art. 197.7 CP punishes anyone who, without authorisation from the person affected, shares, discloses or passes to third parties intimate images or audiovisual recordings of that person which they had obtained with her consent in a home or any other place beyond the reach of others' view, when the disclosure seriously damages that person's personal privacy.

The conduct has a very particular structure that sets it apart from other attacks on privacy: the material was not obtained unlawfully. On the contrary, it was captured or shared in a context of trust — typically a romantic relationship — and is only later shared without permission. Hence its popular name: the sharing tends to occur, precisely, after a break-up, as retaliation. One important point is worth stressing: the image need not be sexually explicit; it is enough that it is intimate in nature and that the disclosure seriously damages the victim's privacy.

Initial Consent Does Not Authorise Sharing

This is the legal core of the offence and the most widespread confusion. Whoever receives an intimate image from a partner, or records it with their consent, tends to think that "the image is mine" and that they can do whatever they want with it. That is a mistake.

Consent to capture, send or keep an intimate image is not the same as consent to share it. The person affected remains the holder of her own privacy and never authorised that material to leave the private setting in which it was shared. That is why the offence under Art. 197.7 CP punishes, autonomously, the non-consensual sharing of content whose origin was lawful. The existence of prior consent to capture the image is legally irrelevant when assessing the sharing: they are two separate acts, and only the second is unlawful.

Penalties Under Art. 197.7 CP

Art. 197.7 CP provides for a basic offence, an aggravated form, and a specific conduct for whoever forwards the material:

The aggravating factor for a partner or former partner is highly relevant in practice, because revenge porn frequently occurs after a break-up: that very relationship is what triggers the upper half of the penalty. Intent to profit likewise aggravates the conduct, which carries particular weight when the sharing is combined with financial demands.

Whoever Forwards It Is Also Liable

A widespread but mistaken idea is that only the person who first shares the material commits an offence. Art. 197.7 CP also expressly punishes anyone who, having received the images or recordings, forwards or shares them with third parties without the consent of the person affected, with a fine of one to three months.

There is no need to have taken part in the original capture, or to have had any relationship with the victim: it is enough to circulate the intimate content knowing it lacks authorisation. In the reality of messaging groups, where an image can be forwarded dozens of times within minutes, this means that every link in the chain of dissemination can face criminal liability. Forwarding it "out of curiosity" or "because someone sent it to me" does not exclude liability.

Overlap: Sextortion, Coercion and Extortion

Revenge porn rarely appears in isolation. The intimate material is frequently used as a means of pressure, which opens the door to other, more serious offences that may overlap with Art. 197.7 CP:

• Conditional threats (Art. 169 CP). Threatening to share the material if the victim does not pay or does not agree to a demand — so-called sextortion — constitutes a conditional threat, carrying imprisonment of one to five years if the offender achieves their purpose, and six months to three years if they do not.
• Extortion (Art. 243 CP). When intimidation is used, with intent to profit, to force the victim to carry out an act or legal transaction to the detriment of her assets, the facts may amount to extortion, carrying imprisonment of one to five years.
• Coercion (Art. 172 CP). Forcibly imposing conduct on the victim, or preventing her from doing what the law does not prohibit, can amount to coercion, carrying imprisonment of six months to three years or a fine.

In addition, within Art. 197 CP itself, sharing data or facts discovered in violation of someone's privacy is treated as conduct of particular seriousness (Art. 197.3 CP), a useful reference for understanding the aggravating logic around sharing. The correct classification of the facts — and the assessment of whether there is a single offence or an overlap of offences — is one of the decisive points of the process, because it marks the difference between a sentence of months and a sentencing range of several years.

Options for the Victim: Removing the Content and Preserving the Evidence

For the person suffering the disclosure, speed is essential: the harm multiplies with every forward. It is advisable to act on two fronts at once — removing the content and preserving the evidence — without the first destroying the second:

• Preserving the digital evidence. Before requesting removal, it is advisable to document the sharing through a notarial record or via the judicial police: screenshots with date and time, URLs, profiles, messages and metadata. This early preservation is decisive for identifying the offender and sustaining the prosecution.
• The AEPD's priority channel. The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has an urgent-action channel to request the removal of sexual or violent content shared without consent.
• Removal from platforms and the right to be forgotten. Content removal can be requested from platforms and social networks — reinforced by the obligations under the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA) — along with de-indexing or the right to be forgotten with respect to search engines.

Lines of Defence

In the defence of the person under investigation, the work focuses on the elements of the offence and on the evidence:

• Material authorship. An account, a device or an IP address do not, on their own, identify a person. Shared, impersonated or third-party-accessible accounts, or commonly used devices, open a genuine debate about who actually shared the material.
• Absence of serious damage to privacy. The offence requires the disclosure to seriously affect privacy. The nature of the content, its reach and its context can be contested in light of that threshold of seriousness.
• Existence of authorisation to share. If the person affected consented not only to the capture but also to the sharing, the conduct may not be an offence; that consent must be assessed rigorously and never presumed.
• Lawfulness and chain of custody of the evidence. The way the evidentiary material was obtained, its integrity and its chain of custody are subject to scrutiny; irregularities can lead to the evidence being ruled inadmissible.

The aim is not to downplay a phenomenon that causes real harm, but to ensure that the classification is accurate, that the attribution of authorship is solidly proven, and that the process respects the guarantees and the presumption of innocence.

Contact the Firm

Alonso Sala is a firm dedicated exclusively to criminal law, based at Calle Velázquez 27 in Madrid, with coverage across all of Spain. We assess whether the facts amount to the offence of sharing intimate images under Art. 197.7 CP, its aggravation due to a partner relationship, the victim being a minor, or intent to profit, and its possible overlap with sextortion, coercion or extortion, taking on the defence — or the victim's private prosecution — with a rigorous evidentiary strategy and the utmost discretion.