The UK’s advertising watchdog has ruled anti-rape start-up Enough misled the public by claiming its self-swab DNA kits can be admissible as evidence in court.
Enough, which dubs itself the “breathalyser of rape” launched in Bristol in September 2024, offering students at the city’s two universities free self-swab rape kits to “deter” sexual assault on campus and encouraging concerned parents to purchase the kits for £20.
The company says it is a “third option” for victims who do not want to report to the police or attend a sexual assault referral centre. Its founders have always said the kits “can be” admissible in court if the survivor can prove the DNA sample was correctly collected and free from contamination.
But the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is unconvinced.
The independent regulator found claims made on Enough’s website and social media channels breached rules on “misleading advertising”, “substantiation” and “exaggeration”, upholding a complaint made about the company by Martin Narey, the former head of the prisons and probation service and children’s charity Barnados.
It ordered Enough “not to state or imply that evidence gathered using their self-testing kit was admissible in court unless they held adequate substantiation for those claims”.
“We considered that consumers would be likely to understand the claims regarding the potential admissibility [...] to mean that the evidence would be admissible with proper usage and handling. We had not seen evidence that that was the case,” the ASA said.
The watchdog’s ruling comes after experts told openDemocracy that Enough’s approach to rape risks the safety and wellbeing of sexual assault victims and survivors. Our investigations uncovered how Bristol’s universities and police force wrote to the company expressing concerns with its approach, while survivors told us they did not feel listened to when they raised negative feedback with Enough about its model. Trading Standards is conducting a separate investigation into Enough.
Sian Norris
“The ruling exposes what I have been saying for a long time: Enough has been lying to women and girls,” said shadow safeguarding minister Alicia Kearns MP. “These kits are not empowerment – they are exploitation dressed up as empathy.” Enough, she said, is “selling lies – including that self-swab rape kits will deter rapists. As a woman, it is not my duty to deter rapists, nor will telling them I have a swab kit at home stop them raping me.”
The ASA decision was also welcomed by Rape Crisis England and Wales, with chief executive Ciara Bergman telling openDemocracy the ruling “upholds many of the concerns which we and other organisations working in the field of sexual violence and abuse have been raising since they learned of the promotion and sale of so-called self-swab ‘rape kits’.”
These concerns, Bergman explained, “include the risk of survivors being given false hope concerning the likely admissibility of any self-collected DNA evidence in a criminal trial, and the importance of clear and accurate information being provided about sexual violence and available services, by those who are experts in it.”
The ruling follows a statement from the National Police Chiefs Council and the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection warning that “evidence gathered outside regulated settings through the use of intimate ‘self-swabbing’ lacks the continuity, integrity, and expert oversight required for robust forensic analysis.” This, they said, “increases the likelihood of a procedural challenge” in a criminal case.
Despite repeated requests, Enough has never confirmed how many survivors have used its kits. openDemocracy can reveal that its lab partner, Alphabiolabs, which analysed and stored the DNA swabs, is no longer working with the company, a decision taken before the ASA announcement.
Alphabiolabs declined to comment on why the contract ended. Enough confirmed that existing samples will be securely transferred to the new facility.
Enough, which has hired a PR company that offers to protect clients from "cancel culture" and the "culture wars”, said in a statement that it “respects the ASA’s ruling” and has “updated our wording to ensure greater clarity.”
“We have always been clear that police and SARCs remain the best and most comprehensive option where survivors feel able to access them,” it added. “Enough exists as an additional option for those who otherwise choose to do nothing. Where a full forensic examination has not happened, tampons, underwear and spit kits have previously convicted rapists and can be admissible, so can Enough's forensic grade kit.”
Exaggerated data
Martin Narey told openDemocracy that he complained to the ASA about Enough after becoming “troubled by some of the company’s claims, particularly those relating to the likely admissibility of their swab kits and the numbers of women raped each year.”
The ASA agreed, ruling that Enough’s claim that 430,000 people were raped in the UK in 2024 breached rules on “exaggeration” and “substantiation”.
Since then, Enough has revised its figures upwards, claiming 490,000 people in the UK were raped last year. The Office for National Statistics, using data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, puts it at 60,000, according to data cited by the ASA.
Enough’s methodology conflated sexual assault by penetration data with rape statistics, and lifetime incidents with those committed within the previous 12 months. The ASA therefore concluded that Enough could not repeat the figures “unless they held adequate substantiation for those claims”.
A LinkedIn post targeted at dads and stating that women are more likely to be raped than get cancer also broke the rules, the ASA said.
Enough told openDemocracy that “we have been in discussions with Committees of Advertising Practice and our wording now reflects their language guidance – including that there are an estimated 500,000 rapes a year in the UK and that Enough’s kits can in principle be admissible in court.”
It is not clear where the 500,000 figure is from.
“For many months now, Enough has been selling and giving away their test kits despite being aware of deep concerns raised not only by me, but by many others, including policing professionals, charities and the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine,” said Narey.
“Their claims about the number of women raped each year have been appallingly exaggerated. In persisting with their claims, despite their acknowledgement to me about the validity of my challenges, I believe they have frightened daughters, terrified parents and demonised sons.”
Sian Norris
Bergman acknowledged “the significant public-interest contribution made by the individual who brought this complaint. Independent scrutiny and the willingness to challenge claims through proper regulatory channels are an important part of maintaining public confidence in products, services and communications relating to violence against women and girls.”
This is not the first time Enough has been accused of misusing statistics.
Emails obtained by openDemocracy via Freedom of Information laws revealed that the University of Bristol challenged Enough’s assertion that there are 500 rapes annually on campus. In response, Enough wrote that “we have no issue if you dispute this number with Journalists [sic], however they will be focussed on what you are actually doing about it, not whether it is 400, 500 or 600.”
“No-one working in the field of sexual offences would pretend that the current system is working as well as we would like it to,” said Dr Alex J Gorton, president of the Faculty for Forensic and Legal Medicine. “However, the solution to this does not lie in the provision of false hope to victims of sexual assault by commercial organisations, risking missing out on access to holistic clinical care and reducing already low conviction rates through the self-collection of inadmissible evidence.”
