The women taking on the tech giants over deepfakes and digital abuse

Under new legal rules companies like TikTok could face hefty fines for failing to tackle illegal intimate images. Yet victims say police are still finding it difficult to act

I went to work the day my sister died. New laws will mean others aren’t compelled to

To survive the unknown, learn to embrace a little chaos

The deadline is looming for tech companies to comply with new rules from the UK’s online regulator, Ofcom, under the Online Safety Act.

Companies like SpacexAI, TikTok and Meta could be fined 10% of their global annual revenue if they can’t show they’ve taken effective action to detect and stop the spread of illegal intimate images and sexualised deepfakes.

But an investigation – in collaboration with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism – shows recent attempts by police to probe SpacexAI over sexualised deepfakes generated by its chatbot Grok have been abandoned, after requests for information were ignored by the company.

Some victims are turning to civil law to hold the company accountable themselves, raising the question: if British law enforcement can’t take action, does the watchdog have the teeth to enforce its shiny new policy?

For Jess Davies, a presenter and campaigner against deepfake abuse, the ordeal began with a post from an anonymous account: “@grok put her in a bikini made of cling film”.

Grok, the platform’s AI chatbot, obliged by moulding her profile photo onto a nude body in see-through plastic. It was one of an estimated 3 million sexualised images posted on X in an 11-day period over Christmas in 2025.

“You can never prepare yourself to see your face put in an intimate photo that you haven’t consented to,” Davies said. She reported it to South Wales police that day.

Messages show that police requests for information the account were ignored by X. Without that help, and having failed to identify the user themselves, the investigation was closed in May. The user, whose posting history includes other abusive Grok requests, remains active.

I went to work the day my sister died. New laws will mean others aren’t compelled to

To survive the unknown, learn to embrace a little chaos

Davies also said police told her they were reluctant to pursue her case under the sexual offences law criminalising deepfakes because of a possible “loophole”: Grok, the AI chatbot, could be deemed responsible for having shared the images rather than an individual. Instead, Davies was told her report was pursued as malicious communications, which campaigners say does not reflect the reality of victims’ experiences.

“This is abuse and it needs to be policed as such,” said Elena Michael, director of the campaign group #NotYourPorn. “The perpetrator who has requested Grok to make such images should be subject to criminal liability for doing so.”

Clare McGlynn, a law professor and expert on digital violence against women and girls, said law enforcement is struggling to keep up with new technology. “All sense seems to go out of the window when we’re talking the use of a chatbot or Grok,” she said.

“We don’t say, when someone murders someone using a knife, that we can’t prosecute them because it was the knife that did it. The person is held responsible.”

A South Wales Police spokesperson said: “An investigation was launched during which the victim was kept informed and offered victim support services. Despite the efforts of investigators, no suspect could be identified.”

Months later, though some restrictions have been implemented, the Grok platform still allows users to generate, manipulate and edit sexualised deepfake images.

SpaceXAI didn’t respond to a request for .

The account that zeroed in on Davies also targeted the commentator and broadcaster Narinder Kaur. Its request to see Kaur depicted in a “white micro bikini with a burka on her head” was just one of what she estimates were 300 images and videos of her posted during the Grok scandal over Christmas.

She said the images put her in various situations to “humiliate” her: on a dog leash, being deported, kissing Donald Trump and to Jeffrey Epstein, the last of which was reported to the Metropolitan Police.

Like Davies, her complaint didn’t go anywhere.

A Met spokesperson said that “after exploring all viable lines of enquiry, no suspect could be identified”.

Kaur said Grok’s design is “shocking”. She added: “It’s their business model. It’s intentional to cause harm and distress and abuse.”

Also targeted during the Grok scandal was the Labour MP Jess Asato. She says users ordered the bot to create images of her in bikinis, while another video showed her being chloroformed and surrounded by men pulling up her skirt – “as if to rape me”.

She said: “Not only was this taking my photo, manipulating it without my consent, but doing so in a way that felt incredibly threatening and worrying.”

The posts were reported to the Parliamentary Security Department and investigated with support of Suffolk Constabulary, which she says took her reports “very seriously”. The bikini images weren’t deemed to be deepfake offences, she says, as they were not considered by law to be “intimate”. Despite police being able to trace the user who posted the chloroform video, they could not prosecute because the person was outside the UK.

Asato was the first to turn to civil law in the UK to seek justice against Grok’s non-consensual intimate deepfakes, suing Elon Musk’s platform in June. Her claim alleges that the platform’s parent company SpacexAI misused her private information and breached data protection laws.

“[We hope to] hold SpacexAI accountable for its creation of non-consensual AI-manipulated imagery… which it should have never allowed its tool to be able to do,” she said.

Davies is now in pre-action legal correspondence with SpacexAI, in which she alleges misuse of her private information, as well as breaching data protection regulations and the Equality Act.

Ravi Naik, lawyer for Davies and Asato, said: “Given this offence and the harm such imagery is causing, a real question is whether the authorities are sufficiently well-resourced with appropriate investigative tools to enforce the law and stop the proliferation of the tools to generate this imagery.”

Campaigners have successfully pushed for a suite of new laws targeting intimate image abuse and deepfakes in recent years. And Ofcom’s new enforcement powers could in theory compel tech companies to act.

An investigation by the watchdog into X is ongoing, however it said it is currently unable to investigate the creation of illegal images by Grok because of how the Online Safety Act relates to chatbots.

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “The creation and sharing of illegal non-consensual intimate images online is utterly abhorrent. Ofcom was one of the first regulators in the world to act on the concerning reports of demeaning sexual deepfakes being created and shared on X. We’re progressing our investigation as a matter of the highest priority, while ensuring we follow due process.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are investing in a pilot network of undercover online officers to target the highest harm, most technologically sophisticated offenders, and introducing protections against non-consensual intimate images through the Crime and Policing Act, including new offences for copying or screenshotting such images without consent.

“We expect all platforms to comply fully with UK law and law enforcement requests. There is more to do, and we won’t stop until every woman in this country is safe online.”

Davies is perplexed as to why it is victims paying the highest price for the Grok abuse. “It does just feel so frustrating because it feels like a total lack of accountability from anyone. Grok can’t do it itself. It’s literally a chatbot.”

Asato, meanwhile, is hopeful her action against SpacexAI can set a meaningful precedent.

“My case is saying we do have rights, based in law,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter how rich you are or how big you are, you have to abide by the law in our country.”

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