The NSW Government Is Criminalising Revenge Porn And It’s A Pretty Big Deal
The NSW Government has announced that it will be introducing laws this week to make the recording or distributing of an intimate image without consent illegal.
As reported in an exclusive to The Daily Telegraph, the laws target “revenge porn” — the sharing of intimate selfies without consent, and also the doctoring and manipulation of sexual imagery. The tough new laws will attract a three-year prison sentence once they come into effect. Recent reports have suggested that one in ten Australians between 18 and 55 have had a nude or semi-nude picture of themselves sent to others without their permission.
As Junkee has reported before, the majority of us have very little in the way of protection by the law from these acts. NSW now joins Victoria as the only Australian states that specifically criminalises revenge porn, with South Australia only having a broad offence against ‘distributing an invasive image’. Victoria prohibits distribution of any image without consent that would be seen as unacceptable by ‘community standards’, and brings a maximum sentence of two years in prison. However, even Victoria’s laws have been criticised as being too weak to actually protect anyone.
In NSW’s new laws, the focus will be on whether the person in the image has consented to having the “intimate image” shared, which specifically targets revenge porn behaviour, in which ex-sexual partners will share intimate images of someone online in order to demean or humiliate someone. An intimate image is defined as “a person’s genital or anal area ‘whether bare or covered by underwear’, breasts of a female or those of a transgender or intersex person, and sexual acts.” The laws will also cover those who threaten to record or distribute such images.
Importantly, offenders under the age of 16 will also be able to be prosecuted under the laws, after approval from the Director of Public Prosecutions. As reported in The Guardian, revenge porn and non-consensual image sharing is higher amongst younger people, with “one in three teenagers aged 16 to 19 and one in four aged 20 to 29 reported at least one form of image victimisation.” Last year there was the widely publicised report of over 70 Australian high schools being involved in a “porn-ring”, where teenage boys would secretly exchange non-consensual sexual images of girls and women.
It’s a positive sign that NSW has put into place these much-needed laws, with hope that the rest of Australia will soon follow. Even on a Federal level there is evidence that these crimes are being taken seriously, with the government calling for submissions on developing civic penalties to target the perpetrators of image-based abuse.
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Feature image via Chrissy Chambers — an LA woman currently trying to prosecute her ex (who filmed and posted her sexual assault online) under new revenge porn laws in the UK. You can read more or donate to her legal fund here.
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Patrick Lenton is a writer and the author of A Man Made Entirely of Bats. He Tweets @patricklenton.