The Law Commission wants to strengthen the law to protect victims of intimate image abuse.
The key proposals are:
- It would be an offence for someone to intentionally take or share an intimate image of a person without their consent
- This new base offence would apply regardless of the perpetrator’s motivation and could lead to a maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment
- If someone takes or shares an intimate image without consent to obtain sexual gratification, or to cause humiliation, alarm or distress, threatens to share an intimate image, or installs hidden equipment, they could receive a sentence of two to three years’ imprisonment.
However, Kate Isaacs, founder of Not Your Porn – which aims to hold the porn industry accountable for the distribution and commercialisation of non-consensual material – said: “The thing that concerns me the most is it doesn’t look like there’s anything in terms of profiting from [image-based sexual abuse] or platform responsibility here, which is really worrying.
“Addressing the installation of equipment such as a hidden camera is all very well and good, but I’ve worked on a number of cases with women who have been secretly recorded without their consent and then that footage has been uploaded to a platform that has allowed someone to profit from that content.”
Source: Calls for downblousing to be made a criminal offence in England and Wales – BBC News