Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Kathy Lynn Simmons tabled legislation in the House this morning that will ban “revenge porn”, also known as the act of spreading intimate sexual images via social media.
Ms Simmons described it as “a new form of technology-facilitated abuse” that leaves the victims exposed, embarrassed, damaged and humiliated.
Under the new law, offenders will face a prison term of up to five years under the Criminal Code Amendment (Non-Consensual Sharing of Intimate Images Act 2021.
The Minister explained that the current laws that date back to the 1980s, fail to address this new trend of using “weaponised” images.
This law makes it a crime to post images without the person’s knowledge or permission.
Anyone found guilty of the offence could face up to five years imprisonment.
The law also criminalises the act of spreading digitally altered images.
“Digital alteration can be done to an image to depict intimate sexual activity or private body parts, and digital alteration can also apply when intimate sexual activity or private body parts are obscured, if the person in the image is still depicted in a sexual way,” she said.
The new law will also allow for ‘rectification orders’ for the removal, retraction recovery, deletion or destruction of any offending images after a successful prosecution.
“Revenge porn typically occurs when someone shares, or makes threats to share, intimate images of a person without the person’s consent,” said Ms Simmons.
“Increasingly, intimate images are being recorded and stored on our smart phones.
“This means that in an instant an intimate image can be uploaded to a social media platform, forwarded or broadcast at the swipe of a finger with little concern about the longstanding consequences or harm to the person captured in the image.
“In no time at all, an intimate image uploaded to the internet can ‘trend’ or become ‘viral’ in an instant and is exceedingly difficult to remove permanently from the internet,” she added.
“Weaponising intimate images, created under the trusting sanctity of a romantic relationship, can be used as a tool to inflict revenge when the relationship breaks down. Even though the intimate images may have been obtained in a consensual context, the parties are unlikely to have consented for the intimate images to be shared with third parties outside the relationship.
“Undoubtedly, the stress and trauma imposed on the victims to such acts, and their families, can be far-reaching.
“In the gravest cases, affected persons have contemplated, attempted or committed suicide because of the associated distress and embarrassment.”
Moving forward, she said: “It is anticipated that this new law will directly protect victims of revenge porn and others whose privacy would be violated by misuse of intimate images and private recordings.
“It will indirectly protect societal values, by upholding privacy and personal protections from the irreparable harm that such violations inevitably impose on others.”
