UK law & digital life glossary

Explore each term in this topic, then open its full explanation for context, sources and related reading.

Adult sexting
Consensual exchange of sexual or intimate words, images or recordings between adults, with separate decisions about content, recipients, storage and reuse.
Age of consent and adulthood
Separate legal concepts: the general age at which a person can consent to sexual activity is 16 across the UK, while a person under 18 remains a child for many safeguarding, image, exploitation and position-of-trust laws.
AI companions and sexuality
Conversational or embodied AI systems designed or used for ongoing relational, romantic or erotic interaction, often with persistent personas and personalised responses.
Catfishing
Using a false or materially deceptive online identity to form or manipulate a relationship, which may range from misleading self-presentation to fraud, exploitation, blackmail or abuse.
Consent to bodily harm
The legally limited role consent may play when an activity causes injury. A private agreement does not automatically provide a defence to assault, and rules depend on harm, purpose, recognised exceptions and jurisdiction.
Cyberflashing
Sending or showing an unsolicited genital image through digital means. In England and Wales, the specific offence has defined intention or recklessness requirements and is narrower than every unwanted sexual image.
Dating-app safety
Privacy, verification, communication, consent and meeting practices that can reduce—but cannot eliminate—risks when using dating platforms.
Deepfake intimate images
Synthetic or altered images, video or data that appear to show an identifiable real person in an intimate state that did not occur or was materially changed. AI generation is one method, not a requirement.
Digital consent
Specific, voluntary and continuing agreement for a digital interaction, including what is created, recorded, stored, accessed, copied, analysed or shared, by whom and for what purpose.
Doxxing
Finding, combining or publishing personal or identifying information about someone without permission, commonly to expose, intimidate, silence or enable harassment.
Intimate-image offences
Criminal offences and related laws concerning taking, creating, copying, sharing or threatening to share images showing or appearing to show a person in an intimate state without the required consent or reasonable belief in consent.
Pornography literacy
Skills for interpreting pornography as constructed sexual media rather than a literal guide to bodies, consent, pleasure, relationships or prevalence.
Teledildonics
Intimate devices whose functions can be controlled, synchronised or influenced through an app, network or another device, locally or at a distance.