SingaporePenal Code, Distributing or Threatening to Distribute Intimate Image or Recording
Penal Code 1871, s. 377BE (Distributing or Threatening to Distribute Intimate Image or Recording)
In 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 intentionally or knowingly distribute, or knowingly threaten to distribute, an image or recording of a person's intimate depiction without that person's consent, where doing so is known or is reason to be believed likely to cause humiliation, alarm or distress.
- This prohibition reaches an image or recording that has been digitally altered or AI-generated to appear to show a person's intimate depiction, not only an authentic one, unless no reasonable person would believe it depicts that person.
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
- 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
Criminal exposure note
Imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years, or a fine, or caning, or any combination of such punishments (s. 377BE(3)); where the depicted person is below 14 years of age, mandatory imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years, with liability also to a fine or to caning (s. 377BE(4)). The section does not state a maximum fine amount.
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 377BE makes it an offence to distribute, or threaten to distribute, an intimate image or recording without consent. Its six subsections state the offence's elements, its extension to an altered or AI-generated image, the applicable penalties, and what the prosecution need not prove for a threat; none creates a duty to keep, create or produce a log or record.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Section 377BE makes it an offence for any person to intentionally or knowingly distribute, or knowingly threaten to distribute, an intimate image or recording of another person without that person's consent, knowing or having reason to believe the distribution or threat will or is likely to cause humiliation, alarm or distress. The section was inserted by the Criminal Law Reform Act 2019 (Act 15 of 2019).
Section 377BE(5)(b), most recently amended with effect from , defines an intimate image or recording to include an image or recording in any form that has been altered or generated to appear to show a person's intimate depiction, excluding an image so altered or generated that no reasonable person would believe it depicts that person; the section's own illustration is a face copied and pasted onto another body to appear that the person engaged in a sexual act.
A person convicted is liable to imprisonment for up to 5 years, or a fine, or caning, or a combination. Where the depicted person is below 14 years of age, imprisonment for up to 5 years is mandatory, and the person is also liable to a fine or to caning.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app generates images with AI, generates video with AI or publishes adult content.
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