Skip to content
Summary: Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, received Royal Assent on June 18, 2026, and most of its Criminal Code changes came into force on July 18, 2026. Two things are genuinely new for intimate images: the offence of sharing intimate images without consent now expressly reaches sexual deepfakes, and it’s now a separate crime to threaten to share an intimate image, including a deepfake, even if nothing is ever actually distributed. But a lot of what people assume is brand new was already illegal, in some cases for over a decade. If you’ve been accused, the first job is figuring out which law actually applies, and that’s where our criminal defence lawyers at Karapancev Law start.
What Bill C-16 Is, and When It Took Effect
Bill C-16 is a broad package of Criminal Code reforms. It received Royal Assent on June 18, 2026, and most of its provisions came into force on July 18, 2026, the 30th day after Royal Assent.
Not everything in the bill is in force, though, and this is where a lot of confusion starts. The much-discussed coercive control offence is part of the same legislation, but it doesn’t come into force until no later than June 2028, to allow time to train police, Crown Attorneys, and judges. So while you’ll see “coercive control” and “sexual deepfakes” mentioned together in the same news coverage, the deepfake and intimate-image changes are law now; the coercive control offence is not yet in effect. Enacted and in force are not the same thing.
What Was Already Illegal Before Bill C-16
Image-based sexual abuse did not become illegal in 2026; however much of it was already a crime.
Since 2015, section 162.1 of the Criminal Code has made it an offence to publish or distribute an intimate image of a person without their consent. The wrinkle was in the definition: an “intimate image” meant a visual recording of the actual person, someone really nude or really engaged in sexual activity, in circumstances carrying a reasonable expectation of privacy. Secretly recording or observing someone in a private setting has long been captured by the voyeurism offence. And “sextortion”, demanding money, images, or anything else under threat of exposure, has always been prosecutable as extortion, which carries a maximum of life imprisonment.
What the old law struggled with was two specific things: synthetic images, and threats. Everything turned on that word, recording. A deepfake nude isn’t a recording of anyone’s body: the face is real, but the body is invented and nothing was ever captured, so a convincing fake didn’t cleanly fit the definition. The offence also targeted the act of sharing, not the threat to share. Bill C-16 was built to close both gaps.
What Bill C-16 Newly Criminalizes
The core changes for intimate images are these:
- Deepfakes are now covered. The non-consensual distribution offence has been expanded so that it applies to sexual deepfakes, synthetic or AI-generated images of an identifiable person. The old requirement that the material be a genuine recording of the person no longer keeps fabricated images outside the offence.
- Threatening to share is now a crime on its own. It’s now an offence to threaten to distribute an intimate image, including a deepfake, without consent, even if the image is never actually shared. This directly targets the mechanics of sextortion.
- A higher maximum penalty. Parliament increased the maximum penalty available for non-consensual distribution of intimate images, and added an aggravating factor where extortion is used in a sextortion case.
There are parallel child-specific changes as well, including a new offence of threatening to distribute child sexual abuse and exploitation material, and an extension of the child luring offence to sextortion. The maximum penalties for voyeurism and for sexual assault on summary conviction were increased too, and the criminal harassment offence was reworked to be easier to prove.
What the New Law Still Doesn’t Cover
Here’s a distinction that matters and that gets lost in the headlines. The government’s own description frames the deepfake reform around distribution and threats to distribute. That means privately creating a deepfake of an adult, one that is never shared and never used as a threat, is not, on its own, the target of these particular amendments. Distribution and threats are the core wrongs the law goes after.
The analysis is very different where the image involves a minor. Content depicting a child can engage child sexual abuse and exploitation material offences, which reach far more than distribution. This is also a fast-moving area, and Parliament has signalled it may revisit whether creation alone should be captured. The point isn’t that anything goes, it’s that the exact offence you’re facing depends heavily on the specific facts.
How These Charges Are Defended
Being accused of an intimate-image or deepfake offence is frightening, and the allegations often arrive tangled up with screenshots, accounts, and messages. A conviction can carry lasting consequences, and for some offences may lead to registration under the sex offender information registry (SOIRA), which no longer applies automatically in every case. That makes an early, careful defence important.
Our lawyers examine several things in these cases. Who actually created, shared, or sent the alleged threat, digital attribution is far from straightforward, and identity may be an issue. Whether the material even meets the statutory definition, which in a deepfake case can turn on expert analysis of the digital evidence. Whether there was consent, or a reasonable expectation of privacy. And whether the accused had the knowledge and intent the offence requires.
Then there’s the Charter. How were the phones, computers, and accounts searched? Was the right to counsel respected? Where police overstep, evidence can be excluded, and these prosecutions often live or die on the electronic evidence. Understanding the rights of the accused is central to a proper defence.
A Strong Defence
An allegation is not a conviction. The Crown still has to prove every element of the offence beyond a reasonable doubt, that you were the person responsible, that the material qualifies under the law, and that the required knowledge and intent were there.
Our criminal defence lawyers at Karapancev Law, the firm founded by Alexander Karapancev, build a defence on a thorough examination of your case, the allegations, the digital evidence, and how it was gathered. We hold the Crown to its burden and pursue every available defence. If you’ve been charged with an intimate-image, deepfake, or sextortion-related offence in Toronto, Brampton, Newmarket, or anywhere in the Greater Toronto Area, contact Karapancev Law for a confidential consultation.
