Upon application by the police or National Crime Agency to a Magistrate, they can impose restrictions upon people whom they deem to be a significant risk to the public from sexual attack. The conditions are of the same variety imposed upon the subject as those in a Registered Sex Offenders License (not to go places, not to access the internet, not to be alone in the company of certain people, notification of changes of address or trips abroad, etc). However, unlike a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, which is imposed following a conviction, or upon people who have been convicted of serious sexual assaults, the SRO specifically has been designed to be applied to a party who has not been convicted or cautioned for any sexual offence.

The most controversial case currently in the news is that of a man who, acquitted of rape (and never convicted or cautioned previously), has had an SRO application successfully imposed upon him by the police whereupon he has to give them 24 hours notice prior to sex, allowing the police the time to contact the prospective partner and inform them of their concerns about him. The SRO can be reapplied for or extended (as they have been in this case) almost indefinitely if the police can convince a magistrate that the suspected risk of the male to the public is enough to warrant infringing his Human Rights (Right to Private and Family Life - Article 9).