The 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) extended the existing federal criminal laws against child pornography to include certain types of “virtual porn”. In 2002, hearing Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the United States Supreme Court found that portions of the CPPA, being overly broad and restrictive, violated First Amendment rights. The Court ruled that images containing an actual minor or portions of a minor are not protected, while computer-generated images depicting a fictitious minor are constitutionally protected.

A magistrate in Sydney, Australia threw out a speeding case after the police said it had no evidence that an image from an automatic speed camera had not been doctored. This case revolved around the integrity of MD5, a digital signature algorithm, intended to prove that pictures have not been doctored after their recording. It is believed that this ruling may allow any driver caught by a speed camera to mount the same defense.

An Easton, Middlesbrough (UK) man, Stafford Sven Tudor-Miles, scanned photographs of adult porn stars into his computer and digitally altered them so that the women appeared to be of girls under the age of 18. The 38-year-old fine art student was charged with possessing indecent pseudo-images of children. His barrister argued that the pictures were of adults and, therefore, no offense had been committed. Under the Protection of Children Act 1978, as amended by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, a pseudophotograph of a child is defined as an image, whether made by computer graphics or otherwise, which appears to be that of a child. Unlike in the United States, where child pornography must involve actual children to be considered illegal, possession or creation of such an image in the UK is illegal. Tudor-Miles pleaded guilty to five counts of attempting to make indecent pseudo-photographs of children, one charge of possessing indecent pseudo-photographs and one of breaching a sex offenders order.

A magazine ad for an Olay beauty product featuring the model Twiggy was banned in the United Kingdom by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). “Olay is my secret to brighter-looking eyes,” read the ad, and “… reduces the look of wrinkles and dark circles for brighter, younger-looking eyes.” In its ruling, the ASA said that it considered that the post-production retouching of the original ad, specifically in the eye area, could give consumers a “misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve”. An Olay spokesperson said the “minor retouching” had been inconsistent with its policies and it had already replaced the image with one with “no postproduction work in the eye area”.

The British Advertising Standards Authority banned two ads by cosmetics company L’Oreal due to excessive retouching. The first was an ad for Lancome featuring Julia Roberts, which claimed to “recreate the aura of perfect skin.” The second was an ad for Maybelline featuring Christy Turlington promoting a product called “The Eraser”. In making their judgment on the Lancome ad, the ASA stated that they “could not conclude that the ad image accurately illustrated what effect the product could achieve, and that the image had not been exaggerated by digital post production techniques.”

After several years of discussion by many countries about the issues surrounding excessive image retouching and body image, Israel became the first country to require advertisements to disclose when digital manipulation has been used to make a model appear thinner. The editing disclosures are actually just part of this new law, which also sets minimum body mass index (BMI) measurements for models to ensure that no underweight models are used in advertisements. The goal is for all Israeli advertisements to promote more realistic body proportions.