Michelmores’ Commercial team advises SWGfL on its partnership with TikTok and Bumble

Michelmores’ Commercial team has advised client South West Grid for Learning Trust (SWGfL) on its recent partnerships with TikTok and Bumble as the two platforms join StopNCII.org as industry partners.

A website and tool for reporting non-consensual intimate image abuse, StopNCII.org was set up and is operated by SWGfL. Since its inception in December 2021, the free resource has helped over 12,000 individuals remove and prevent further sharing of intimate images online, including so called ‘revenge porn’. TikTok and Bumble join existing industry partners, Facebook and Instagram, as well as over 70 global NGOs.

StopNCII.org works by creating a unique digital fingerprint (or ‘hash’) from an image using on-device hashing technology – a world-first technology. Duplicate copies of the image all have the same hash value and so when shared with industry partners the hash value can be used to detect and remove the image from the industry partner’s platform. Those at risk or threatened with the abusive use of their images can use the StopNCII.org website to create hashes of their images and, once created, SWGfL shares each hash with its industry partners.

The Michelmores team was led by Technology and Innovation Partner, Tom Torkar with support from Associate Philippa Collison. Of the deal Tom said:

“It was a pleasure to act for SWGfL in its negotiations with new partners TikTok and Bumble. These two platforms add even greater weight to the StopNCII.org campaign, enabling it to help more people to take back control of their images online.” 

David Wright, Chief Executive Officer of SWGfL said:

“StopNCII is an extraordinary application of technology to discharge the catastrophic distress that victims experience when having their intimate images threatened to be posted online.  In the UK alone, our Revenge Porn Helpline, supported over 4,400 victims in 2021.  We welcome TikTok and Bumble in integrating StopNCII, joining Facebook and Instagram, to prevent the sharing of these images. Tom and Pip at Michelmores were a vital part of the team agreeing details with TikTok and Bumble to enable their integration”.