Report says tech firms fail women by ignoring consent in image abuse

Tech firms and lawmakers have built their rules around nudity, and that focus leaves too many women unprotected. Chayn says the real dividing line is consent, not whether an image is explicit, and its new report argues that image-based abuse can begin with material that is not sexual at all.

The report, Explicit Harms of Non-Explicit Images, draws on more than two years of conversations with more than 60 Pakistani women from cities and villages across Pakistan and from the diaspora. The women, who spoke Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Siraiki, Balochi and English, described abuse that included a photo without a hijab, a dancing image at a wedding and a screenshot of a private conversation. Chayn says those examples show how narrow definitions built into laws, moderation systems and reporting tools miss the way online harassment actually works.

Hera Hussain’s organization says the term revenge porn is misleading and stigmatizing because it centers retaliation rather than the lack of permission. Chayn’s taxonomy of what women in Pakistan and the diaspora considered private, intimate or harmful if shared without consent places the emphasis where it belongs, on whether material was taken, shared or threatened without approval. The report also says the damage can spread beyond the survivor, into families and communities, especially where reputational pressure and blackmail are used to police women’s behavior.

That argument fits a wider shift among rights groups and policymakers. Equality Now says laws should explicitly criminalize non-consensual sharing of intimate images, threats to share them and deepfakes. UN Women says AI-facilitated violence against women now includes manipulated sexual imagery and videos, and that digital abuse intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2022 UN Women review cited one global report putting the prevalence of online violence against women and girls anywhere from 16 percent to 58 percent.

The policy response is starting to move, but unevenly. On February 19, 2026, the British government said tech firms would have to remove intimate images shared without a victim’s consent within 48 hours, treating the material with similar seriousness to child sexual abuse material and terrorist content. The UK Law Commission said the government accepted recommendations to reform intimate image offenses, with some changes already reflected in the Online Safety Act 2023.

Chayn says the abuse is not new, only the technology is. In a May 2026 blog post, it pointed to Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, and Shahnaz Gul as reminders that misogyny has long used women’s images as a weapon. Its message is blunt: if law and platform policy keep asking only whether an image is nude, they will keep failing to see the harm.