Revenge Porn Laws in Arizona: What Victims Need to Know in 2026

What Arizona Law Says

Arizona has one of the tougher revenge porn laws in the nation. Under Arizona Revised Statutes Section 13-1425, titled "Unlawful disclosure of images depicting states of nudity or specific sexual activities," it is a Class 5 felony to intentionally disclose an image of an identifiable person in a state of nudity or engaged in specific sexual activities, when the person had a reasonable expectation of privacy and the disclosure is made with intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten, or coerce the person. It is a Class 4 felony if the image is disclosed by electronic means, such as posting it on a website or sending it to a phone or email address.

For a first offense, a Class 5 felony carries a presumptive sentence of 1.5 years in prison, with a range of 0.5 to 2.5 years, and a Class 4 felony carries a presumptive 2.5 years, with a range of 1 to 3.75 years, depending on mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Threatening to disclose an image, or disclosing a realistic computer-created or altered image, is a Class 1 misdemeanor. The law was originally passed in 2014 and was subsequently amended after a constitutional challenge that narrowed its scope to require that the disclosure be made with intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten, or coerce.

Review the full statute at the Arizona Legislature website.

What Counts as Revenge Porn in Arizona

Arizona's statute defines the offense with the following elements. The image must depict a person who is identifiable in a state of nudity or engaged in specific sexual activities. The person depicted did not consent to the disclosure. The depicted person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Sending the image to another person does not, on its own, remove that expectation. The offender disclosed the image with intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten, or coerce the person depicted.

Arizona's law is notable for its felony classification, which sets it apart from many states that treat first-offense revenge porn as a misdemeanor. The law covers all forms of distribution, whether through social media platforms like Reddit and Snapchat, websites, text messages, or any other electronic or physical medium.

How to Report

If you are a victim of revenge porn in Arizona:

  1. Collect evidence immediately — Screenshot the images, URLs, profile names, and any messages. Use screen recording if content might be removed quickly.
  2. File a police report — Contact your local police department or the county sheriff's office. Because this is a felony in Arizona, law enforcement should take the report seriously. Reference ARS 13-1425.
  3. Contact the county attorney — Arizona's county attorney offices handle felony prosecutions. You can reach out directly if you feel police are not acting.
  4. File with the FBI — Report to the FBI IC3 if images were distributed across state lines or via the internet.
  5. Obtain an injunction — Arizona courts can issue injunctions against harassment.

Limitations of Criminal Law

While Arizona's felony classification gives the law more teeth than many states, criminal prosecution still has inherent limitations for victims. The legal process is slow — felony cases can take six months to over a year to reach resolution. During this time, the images remain online and accessible.

The requirement to prove the offender's knowledge and intent can complicate prosecution. If images were shared by a third party who received them from the original poster, establishing a chain of responsibility becomes difficult. Anonymous posting and the use of VPNs can make identifying offenders extremely challenging for law enforcement.

Even after a successful prosecution and conviction, there is no automatic mechanism to remove content from the internet. The images may exist on dozens of platforms, mirror sites, and archive services. Each platform requires a separate takedown request, and some sites deliberately resist removal.

Removing the Content

Content removal runs separately from the criminal process, because a prosecution does not take images offline.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act requires covered platforms to remove qualifying intimate imagery and make reasonable efforts to remove known identical copies within 48 hours of a valid request. The platform and request must meet the law's requirements. See FTC guidance; this is not a universal service turnaround guarantee.

StopNCII.org enables victims to generate digital hashes of their images on their own device, without uploading them. Participating platforms can use those hashes to detect and block matching uploads; sites outside the program are not covered.

For removal across several sites, including Google and Bing de-index requests, IntimaShield files as your authorized representative and follows up while the content stays up. See our NCII removal guide.

See also: California's revenge porn law for a comparison with a Western state that treats a first offense as a misdemeanor.

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