FranceCode Pénal Article 226-8-1, Non-Consensual Sexual Montage and Algorithmically Generated Sexual Content
archived copy
Read from a public archive copy, not the publisher directly. The publisher does not serve this page to automated readers, so a direct fetch was not an option here; how we access sources. Archived 2024. Publisher's page: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000049563368In force since .
An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
- Setting the rule reaches
- General
What it requires
- Do not create or share, by any means, a non-consensual sexual montage, or a non-consensual, algorithmically generated sexual image, video, or audio reproducing a real person's likeness or voice.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 3.3Targeted application scope is specified and documented based on the system’s capability, established context, and AI system categorization.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-08Information Integrity
- GAI-RISK-11Obscene, Degrading, and/or Abusive Content
- MIT mitigations Draft
- NIST Privacy Framework
- CT.PO-P1Policies, processes, and procedures for authorizing data processing (e.g., organizational decisions, individual consent), revoking authorizations, and maintaining authorizations are established and in place.
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-005System Acceptance Testing
- ETSI EN 304 223
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionNo
Criminal exposure note
Article 226-8-1's first alinea punishes bringing to the knowledge of the public or a third party, by any means, a non-consensual sexual montage made with a person's words or image, with two years' imprisonment and a 60,000 euro fine; the same alinea assimilates a non-consensual, algorithmically generated sexual visual or audio content reproducing a person's image or words to that offense and punishes it identically. The article's final alinea raises both to three years' imprisonment and a 75,000 euro fine where the montage or the algorithmically generated content is published through an online public communication service. A middle alinea applies the special press-law rules on determining responsible persons where the offense is committed through written or audiovisual press.
Penalty structure
Base tier (Art. 226-8-1, first alinea): two years' imprisonment and a 60,000 euro fine, for the non-consensual sexual montage offense and for the algorithmically generated sexual content assimilated to it. The same alinea's penalty rises to three years' imprisonment and 75,000 euros where the montage or algorithmically generated content is published through an online public communication service (Art. 226-8-1, final alinea).
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- EUR
- Fixed cap
- 60,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
French criminal courts (tribunaux correctionnels), on prosecution by the public prosecutor (parquet); no dedicated regulator enforces this offense.
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does 'reproduisant l'image ou les paroles d'une personne' (reproducing a person's image or words) in the second alinéa of Article 226-8-1 cover a sexual image or recording generated from a prompt that resembles a real person without copying any photograph or recording of her, or only content built from that person's actual image or voice?
- Does 'porter à la connaissance du public ou d'un tiers' (bringing to the knowledge of the public or a third party) reach the operator of a service that generates sexual content on a user's request and returns it to that user alone?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Article 226-8-1 is a criminal prohibition on bringing to the knowledge of the public or a third party a non-consensual sexual montage, or a non-consensual, algorithmically generated sexual image, video or audio content reproducing a person's likeness or words. It states no duty to create, keep or produce a log or record of any kind.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Article 226-8-1, inserted after Article 226-8 by SREN Article 21, punishes with two years' imprisonment and a 60,000 euro fine bringing to the knowledge of the public or a third party, by any means, a non-consensual sexual montage made with a person's words or image. The same alinea assimilates to that offense, and punishes identically, a non-consensual, algorithmically generated visual or audio content of a sexual character reproducing a person's image or words.
The penalty rises to three years' imprisonment and a 75,000 euro fine where the montage or the algorithmically generated content is published through an online public communication service. Article 64 of the enacting law, which lists every article whose commencement is delayed, does not name Article 21, and the article carries no commencement clause of its own. Loi n° 2024-449 du 21 mai 2024 was published in the Journal officiel of .
Article 1 of the Code civil puts a law with no commencement day of its own in force on the day after its publication in the Journal officiel.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app generates audio with AI, generates images with AI, generates video with AI or publishes adult content.
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