Vatican CityChild sexual abuse material offences (Legge N. VIII, arts. 4, 10-11)
Legge N. VIII, Norme complementari in materia penale, 11 luglio 2013, artt. 4, 10-11
In force since .
An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not produce, procure a minor to create, or recruit or induce a minor into a pornographic exhibition producing, material depicting a minor in real or simulated sexually explicit conduct; the ban reaches a simulated or computer-generated depiction exactly as it reaches a photograph of a real child.
- Do not distribute, disseminate, transmit, import, export, offer, sell, or possess such material for those purposes, including by telematic means, and do not acquire or knowingly possess it even outside those purposes.
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
Private right of actionNo
Criminal exposure note
Producing the material using a minor, or trading in it (art. 10 §§ 1-2): six to twelve years' imprisonment. Distributing, disseminating, transmitting, importing, exporting, offering, selling, or possessing it for those purposes, including telematically (art. 10 § 3): one to five years. Offering or transferring it without payment (art. 10 § 4): up to three years, increased where the quantity is substantial (art. 10 § 5). Attending an exhibition of it (art. 10 § 6): up to two years. Procuring or knowingly possessing it outside those cases (art. 11 § 1): up to two years, increased where the quantity is substantial (art. 11 § 2).
Penalty structure
The fine is tiered by conduct: producing the material or trading in it caps at 250,000 (art. 10 §§ 1-2); distributing, disseminating, transmitting, importing, exporting, offering, selling, or possessing it for those purposes, including telematically, caps at 50,000 (art. 10 § 3); offering or transferring it without payment caps at 15,000 (art. 10 § 4); attending an exhibition of it caps at 10,000 (art. 10 § 6); and simple procurement or knowing possession outside those cases caps at 10,000 (art. 11 § 1).
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- EUR
- Fixed cap
- 250,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Vatican City State's ordinary criminal justice system (investigation and prosecution before the State's judicial organs); the statute creates no dedicated regulator.
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Articles 10 and 11 (read in full) create the child sexual abuse material offences; no clause names a log, record or audit trail, or requires demonstrating, proving or producing anything. Every offence binds 'chiunque' (anyone) with no scope or territorial clause of its own.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Legge N. VIII of , Vatican City State's supplementary penal-law statute, entered into force on (art. 55).
Article 4(d) defines “materiale pedopornografico” (child sexual abuse material) as any representation of a minor, regardless of the medium used, involved in real or simulated explicit sexual activity, or any representation of a minor's sexual organs for predominantly sexual purposes; the definition is medium-neutral and reaches a simulated depiction on the same footing as a real one, so its text extends to a computer-generated or AI-generated depiction of a minor and not only to a photograph of a real child, even though the statute was drafted before generative AI and never uses that term.
Article 10 § 1 punishes producing such material using a minor, or recruiting or inducing a minor into a pornographic exhibition, with six to twelve years' imprisonment and a fine of 25,000 to 250,000 euro; § 2 applies the same penalty to trading in the material.
Article 10 § 3 punishes distributing, disseminating, transmitting, importing, exporting, offering, selling, or possessing such material for those purposes by any means, including telematically, with one to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 2,500 to 50,000 euro. Article 10 § 4 punishes offering or transferring the material, even without payment, with up to three years' imprisonment and a fine of 1,500 to 15,000 euro, increased under § 5 where the quantity is substantial.
Article 10 § 6 punishes attending a pornographic exhibition of a minor with up to two years' imprisonment and a fine up to 10,000 euro. Article 11 § 1 separately punishes procuring or knowingly possessing such material, outside the article 10 cases, with up to two years' imprisonment and a fine of 1,500 to 10,000 euro, increased under § 2 where the quantity is substantial.
Every offence binds any person (“chiunque”), and the statute states no exception for a computer-generated or AI-generated depiction.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app generates content with AI or publishes adult content.
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