Someone shared your private images without your consent.

Yes. The TAKE IT DOWN Act was signed into law on May 19, 2025 and added a new subsection to 47 U.S.C. § 223. It covers both authentic intimate visual depictions and “digital forgeries,” meaning images created through software, machine learning, or artificial intelligence. Where the person depicted is an adult, the penalty is up to two years; where the person is a minor, up to three. Threatening to publish is a separate offense: a threat involving a digital forgery carries up to 18 months, or 30 months where a minor is involved, and a threat involving an authentic depiction is punished the same as the underlying offense. Separately, 15 U.S.C. § 6851 gives you a federal civil claim you can bring yourself.

Yes, and three Florida statutes can apply. Section 784.049 makes it a first-degree misdemeanor to willfully and maliciously publish or send a sexually explicit image of someone without their consent when the image identifies them or is posted alongside information that does; a prior conviction or a financial motive makes it a felony. Section 836.13 covers AI-generated and digitally altered sexual depictions. Section 836.14 covers images that were stolen, or promoted for financial gain. Each carries criminal penalties, and each also creates a civil action you can bring yourself.

Florida’s statute addresses this directly: “Evidence that the depicted person sent a sexually explicit image to another person does not, on its own, remove his or her reasonable expectation of privacy for that image.” Federal law says the same thing another way: under 15 U.S.C. § 6851, consenting to the creation of an image does not establish consent to its distribution, and sharing it with one person does not establish consent to further disclosure by the person who spread it.

It can still be covered, and the two statutes get there by different routes. The federal statute reaches a “depicted individual” who is identifiable by face, likeness, or other distinguishing characteristic, such as a unique birthmark or other recognizable feature, or from information displayed in connection with the depiction. Florida’s section 784.049 applies where the image contains or conveys your personal identification information, or where that information is published at the same time in a way that a viewer would reasonably know it relates to you. Which route fits depends on the image and on what was posted alongside it.

It depends on which statute applies. Under 15 U.S.C. § 6851 you may recover your actual damages or liquidated damages of $150,000, plus the cost of the action including reasonable attorney’s fees. Under Florida’s sections 784.049, 836.13, and 836.14, the civil action provides $10,000 or your actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney fees and costs, and section 784.049 also allows punitive damages. What any individual case is worth depends on facts we would need to review with you.

Not necessarily. The federal statute was written with this concern in mind: in ordering relief, “the court may grant injunctive relief maintaining the confidentiality of a plaintiff using a pseudonym.” That is a decision for the court, not something any lawyer can promise in advance, but it is in the statute, and it is one of the strongest reasons to consider the federal claim.

None of these statutes states a civil filing deadline on its face, so the deadline comes from general limitations law, and which period applies to which claim is a question about your specific facts. The clock can begin earlier than most people expect, potentially from the date the images were first shared rather than the date you found out, and Florida courts have described more than one framework for when a claim founded on a publication accrues. Do not assume you have time. Call before you make that assumption.

Not necessarily, and it is worth asking rather than assuming. Florida appellate courts have addressed when a later posting counts as a new publication, and have said the analysis turns on whether a separate and distinct decision was made to republish the material. Whether that helps in your situation depends on the specific facts, which is why we ask for the date of the original posting and the date of every repost you know about.

Yes. Section 836.13 covers an “altered sexual depiction,” a visual depiction modified to show a realistic version of an identifiable person with another person’s or computer-generated nude body parts, or engaged in sexual conduct they did not engage in. Willfully generating one without consent is a third-degree felony, and so is willfully and maliciously promoting one. The section carries a civil action for $10,000 or actual damages plus fees and costs. Federal law reaches it too: the TAKE IT DOWN Act’s “digital forgery” definition expressly names software, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

No. Section 836.13 says a disclaimer inside an altered sexual depiction stating that the person depicted did not consent or did not perform the acts shown “is not a defense and does not relieve a person of criminal liability under this section.”

Yes, and the request goes to the platform, not to the government. Under the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 223a, every covered platform had to establish a notice-and-removal process within one year of May 19, 2025, and once a valid request is submitted the platform must remove the depiction, and known identical copies, as soon as possible and not later than 48 hours. The statute lets the request come from the person depicted or from an authorized person acting on their behalf, and it lists what a valid request must contain. We prepare and submit those requests for clients as part of the case, and we keep the record of when each one was sent. Florida’s section 836.13 imposes the same 48-hour duty for altered sexual depictions and treats a platform’s failure to comply as an unfair or deceptive trade practice. Federal non-compliance is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission; what a platform’s failure means for your own claim is a separate question, and one we answer with the record in hand.

It does not weaken your case, and it often adds to it. The intimate image statutes turn on the absence of consent to disclosure, so a recording you never knew about was never consented to at any stage. Florida law also treats secret recording as its own wrong: digital voyeurism is a crime under section 810.145, and Florida courts recognize a common-law civil claim for “physically or electronically intruding into one’s private quarters,” which one appellate court has held does not depend on the recording ever being shared. No appellate court has yet applied that claim to a bedroom recording, which is one more reason the facts of your case matter.

Yes. Willfully promoting a sexually explicit image for pecuniary or any other financial gain, without the identifiable person’s consent, is a second-degree felony under section 836.14, and since October 1, 2025, committing sexual cyberharassment for financial gain is a third-degree felony under section 784.049, a second-degree felony on a repeat violation. Both sections carry civil actions. As a practical matter, money changing hands tends to leave the kinds of records that help identify an anonymous poster.

Often, yes. An anonymous account is a starting point, not a dead end, and identifying the person behind it is one of the first things we assess in the internet cases this firm handles. Separately, platform removal obligations do not depend on knowing who posted the material; the request identifies the depiction, not the poster.

Under the federal statute, yes. 15 U.S.C. § 6851 provides that where the individual is under 18, incompetent, incapacitated, or deceased, a legal guardian, an estate representative, another family member, or another person the court appoints as suitable may assume that individual’s rights, and the defendant may never serve as that representative or guardian. Matters involving images of anyone under 18 are not handled by this firm; see the under-18 page for who to contact.

Under the federal claim, the statute defines “disclose” as to transfer, publish, distribute, or make accessible (15 U.S.C. § 6851(a)(4)). That reaches the person who shared or posted the images. Whether it reaches someone who only received or viewed them is a question the statute does not answer in your favor. Florida’s statutes are also built around the act of publishing or disseminating the image, not merely seeing it. Who you can name, and under which law, is one of the first things we sort out.