A revenge porn crackdown is welcome, though it's founded on outdated ideas

New sentencing guidelines will call for jail sentences of up to 2 years for those who send ‘revenge porn’ images to victims’ families, today's Telegraph reports. IT signals a very clear message that this crime, which became a specific offence only in April 2015, will be taken very seriously and is a serious matter.


I am delighted that the crime is recognised for what it is – an unacceptable, hugely damaging and distressing violation of a person’s privacy. Any attempt to reduce its frequency by making an example of offenders can only be applauded, and the 200 prosecutions that have taken place must be welcomed. Yet the law is premised on a notion that, if we were being honest, is outdated – the notion of ‘private images.’
Privacy, the law assumes, is to be judged by looking at the intentions of the image owner. A couple who make explicit videos or pictures together, or who share their own images between themselves, intend that content to be used only for their own enjoyment, therefore it is private. But they will probably use an internet-based service to share them, uploading it to a server somewhere. In the simple act of sharing the image, they give some-one else the ability to place that in all manner of places with varying degrees of public visibility, and they entrust that image to a service provider of some kind, be it a messaging app or social networking platform. They also place their trust in the other person’s awareness of their own personal security, but how many people have honestly checked all the privacy settings and read the small print of every social platform that we use? How many have ever left a phone lying around, logged in to all kinds of apps, that some-one else might look at?
We then face several questions: who actually owns the images? What is the integrity and security like with every platform and individual that now, in some way, has access to that content?
It really doesn’t matter what one’s intentions were. There is no zero-risk approach in the digital age. If I were going to distribute some revenge porn, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to post it on a dedicated site. My hunch is that the 200 people prosecuted are simply those idiots who aren’t terribly good at it. There are much more subtle ways that this kind of thing can be done: the sharing of images with friends, the posting to social media or simply the threat of what one could do to blackmail and torment a would-be victim. And, in reality, whether prosecutions follow or not, there is very little that can be done before a huge amount of damage is already done. And we simply haven’t got to grips with this!

It is little wonder that there is so much concern about young people ‘sexting’ when their education doesn’t include lessons in how to stay safe on-line and how to keep their information and private content secure. IF we adults believe that what we intend still counts for anything, it’s little wonder we are failing them. Look at any news item about an event of any significance, for instance the tragedy last week in Westminster. We’ve become used to seeing mobile phone footage as part of coverage, but has anyone stopped to consider whether anyone who happened to be caught in the images or filming were asked about it? Next time you see a picture on Facebook, look and see if anyone isn’t tagged that appears in the photo and reflect on the fact that they may not even use the site or have any idea that they appear in images that now reside in an online space. Anyone can be pictured and the pictures beamed to the masses in seconds. Outside of our own walls, privacy simply doesn’t exist anymore. Outside the technical walls of secret passwords that only we know, privacy doesn’t exist anymore either. But crucially, one other thing doesn’t exist anymore either: the idea of being a little bit compromised. Some-one who stole a physical photo could potentially have made a few photocopies, and, unless you were a person of public interest, it’s doubtful that there would be any lasting consequence to the theft. Now, when we make something a little bit public, we effectively push a button that enables that to balloon in to something very public, whether through the ill will or negligence of others. The blunt reality is that if your image does get misused, the chances are that the law isn’t going to help you. I’m definitely not the person you should turn to for top tips in the bedroom, but I have got one: put your phone away!