NCDII Statistics Canada [2026]

Canadian police reported 3,111 incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images (NCDII) across all ages in 2024, a rate of 7.53 per 100,000 population, according to Statistics Canada 2025. That figure sits alongside a separate youth-only series tracked by Statistics Canada’s child-exploitation research, which counts incidents involving victims 17 and under on its own scale. This post walks through the police-reported trend, demographic and relationship breakdowns, clearance and charge outcomes, and provincial variation. It also covers the civil remedies victims can pursue under Section 162.1 of the Criminal Code.

What counts as non-consensual distribution of intimate images under Canadian law

Section 162.1(2) of the Criminal Code defines an intimate image as a photo, film, or video showing nudity, genitals, or breasts, or explicit sexual activity. The image must be made and viewed in circumstances that created a reasonable expectation of privacy, per the Justice Laws Website 2026. Section 162.1(1) makes it an indictable offence, punishable by up to five years in prison, to knowingly publish, distribute, transmit, sell, make available, or advertise such an image without consent.

The offence covers recklessness as well as deliberate knowledge. A person can be convicted under section 162.1(1) for knowingly distributing an intimate image, or for being reckless about whether the depicted person consented. The charge can proceed by indictment or by summary conviction. NCDII differs from sextortion, where an offender threatens to release images to extort money rather than distributing them outright.

Canada’s NCDII law is younger than most people assume. Section 162.1 came into force on March 10, 2015, when the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, SC 2014, c. 31 created the standalone offence. The statute is barely a decade older than the smartphone-driven sharing patterns it now governs.

A sentencing court can also go beyond a prison term. Section 162.2 of the Criminal Code lets a judge prohibit a person convicted under section 162.1 from using the internet or other digital networks. Breaching that prohibition order is itself an indictable offence, carrying up to four years in prison.

How many NCDII incidents are reported to police in Canada each year

Canadian police reported 3,234 all-ages NCDII incidents in 2023, a rate of 8.07 per 100,000 population, a 21% jump over 2022, according to Statistics Canada 2025. The all-ages rate then eased to 7.53 per 100,000 in 2024 (3,111 incidents), down 6.6% from 2023 but still well above 2022’s 6.66 per 100,000.

The youth-only series runs on a separate scale. Among victims aged 17 or younger specifically, police reported 488 NCDII incidents in 2024, a rate of 6.4 per 100,000 children and youth. That is 3% lower than the 6.7-per-100,000 youth rate in 2023, according to Statistics Canada’s Juristat 2026 profile on police-reported child sexual exploitation. This youth rate is calculated against the population of children and youth, not the general population. It should never be read alongside the all-ages figure above as if the two describe the same denominator.

Looking further back, police reported 1,728 NCDII incidents involving child and youth victims between 2015 and 2022, per the 2014-to-2022 Juristat edition. That works out to an average of 3 incidents per 100,000 children and youth annually. The 2015-2022 average is the floor against which the sharper 2023-2024 increases stand out.

Who is most likely to be a victim — and who is accused

Among child and youth NCDII victims from 2015 to 2022, the median age was 15 for girls and 14 for boys, according to Statistics Canada. Ninety-seven percent of victims were aged 12 to 17. The offence overwhelmingly affects young teens rather than younger children.

Nine in ten people accused of NCDII involving a child or youth victim were themselves youth, with a median accused age of 15 for boys and 14 for girls. Boys aged 12-17 accounted for two-thirds (66%) of all accused persons, and girls aged 12-17 for just under a quarter (23%), per the same Juristat series.

Zooming out to every age combined, Statistics Canada’s 2024 profile found that 41% of NCDII victims identified by police were aged 17 or younger. Minors remain a disproportionate share of victims even once adult cases are counted in.

How accused-victim relationships shape NCDII cases

Among child and youth NCDII victims from 2015 to 2022, Statistics Canada’s Juristat series breaks down the accused’s relationship to the victim as follows:

• Casual acquaintance: 33% of incidents
• Current or former dating or intimate partner: 28% of incidents
• Friend: 21% of incidents
• Stranger: 14% of incidents

Intimate partners and acquaintances together account for the large majority of youth NCDII cases, according to the 2014-to-2022 Juristat edition. Statistics Canada does not publish an equivalent relationship breakdown for all-ages NCDII incidents, so this cut applies to the youth cohort specifically.

Clearance rates, charges, and court outcomes for NCDII

Of the 3,111 all-ages NCDII incidents police reported in 2024, 1,080 (34.7%) were cleared and 486 people (15.6%) were formally charged, according to Statistics Canada 2025. That charged group split between 393 adults and 93 youth. The prior year told a different story. In 2023, 31.6% of incidents were cleared and 14.4% resulted in a charge, a lower charge rate than 2024’s despite 2023 having more total incidents.

The youth-specific figures diverge from the all-ages series. Incidents with victims aged 17 or younger saw a 34% clearance rate and just a 9% charge rate in 2024, according to Statistics Canada’s Juristat 2026 profile. The lower youth charge rate reflects Canada’s diversion-first approach to accused persons who are themselves minors, most of whom fall into the 12-17 cohort documented above.

How NCDII rates vary across Canadian provinces

Prince Edward Island recorded the highest average NCDII rate of any Canadian province between 2018 and 2022, at 14.1 incidents per 100,000 people. That is more than double the national average of 5.6 per 100,000 over the same period, according to CBC News 2023, reporting Statistics Canada data. That gap held even as the national all-ages rate climbed to 7.53 per 100,000 by 2024. The provincial imbalance behind PEI’s numbers appears to predate the broader post-2022 national increase rather than follow it.

Civil remedies and the growing role of AI-generated deepfakes

A criminal charge is not a victim’s only option. Beyond a police complaint, NCDII victims in Canada can pursue civil remedies, according to a CanLII-published legal review of Canadian NCDII law. Courts can award general, special, aggravated, and punitive damages, or issue an injunction ordering a defendant to stop distributing an image or make reasonable efforts to remove it. A court can also order third parties, such as internet service providers, to take an image down, and can require a defendant to hand over profits from distributing it.

Manitoba built the first version of that civil framework. Its Intimate Image Protection Act, enacted in 2015, created Canada’s first NCDII-specific statutory tort. Under section 11(2), an action for the non-consensual distribution of an intimate image may be brought without proof of damage, per the Government of Manitoba’s bill text. That means a victim does not have to prove financial or psychological harm to sue.

In 2024, Manitoba extended that tort again. The Intimate Image Protection Amendment Act (Distribution of Fake Intimate Images) added AI-generated and digitally altered images to the statute, according to the amending bill’s explanatory note. It lets anyone depicted in a fake intimate image sue the person who distributed it without consent. That made Manitoba’s law the country’s first to explicitly cover deepfakes. A related surge in AI-generated intimate images on other platforms is covered in more depth by the online harassment statistics Canada post.

Other provinces have since followed Manitoba’s lead. Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Maritime provinces have each enacted their own NCDII-specific statutory torts, according to a 2024 CanLII comparative review of Prairie-province remedies. The exact scope of damages and defences differs province to province.

What victims and families can do — and how investigators help preserve evidence

A criminal complaint under section 162.1 and a civil lawsuit for NCDII are not mutually exclusive. A victim can report to police for a criminal investigation while pursuing civil damages or an injunction, according to the Department of Justice Canada’s working-group report on cyberbullying and NCDII.

Young people have a dedicated removal channel. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection operates NeedHelpNow.ca, a free service that helps people under 18 request the removal of non-consensually shared nude or intimate images from online platforms. The organization also runs the broader Cybertip.ca reporting line for child sexual exploitation.

As licensed PIs, we treat an NCDII disclosure as an evidence-preservation problem first. Screenshots, message timestamps, account handles, and platform metadata need to be captured before an offender deletes a post or an account. That record often determines whether a criminal complaint, a civil claim, or both routes stay viable. This preservation work overlaps with the tactics documented in the stalking statistics Canada post, where tech-facilitated abuse cases share the same digital-evidence chain. Social media and internet investigation services at +1 (888) 680-0036 — Licensed · Insured · Bonded — document NCDII evidence for referral to police and legal counsel across Ontario. The fraud research hub has wider coverage of Canada’s online-abuse and exploitation statistics.