When Love Turns Sour !

Injury, disfigurement and even death are a common result when relationships fall apart and one party claims " ownership " !   The long suffering police get called to what their log books describe as " domestic incidents "  where they often need to physically  separate brawling couples.  If an AVO is in place that is supposed to keep the peace, but in the vast majority of cases they are ignored by the aggressor.

In recent times, a new method of delivering revenge and humiliation by the rejected lover is to deliberately circulate nude photographs of intimate moments on social media.   These scandalous portrayals - for all the world to see - damage the social standing of the victim and do great social harm.  In many cases, they can ruin careers.

Advances in technology have provided an easy opportunity to do such damage.  The invention of the digital camera did away with the need for film processing and many lovers record their intimacy for their own enjoyment.   Social media such as Facebook accepts input from the public and the ever widening Internet provides almost unlimited opportunity for salacious material to get an airing.

Sadly, even the most chaste relationship is not immune to such damage.  A victims face can be plucked from an innocent social media photographic appearance and transferred onto the body of a complete stranger adopting a pornographic pose.  Clever apps allow this to be managed by those with minimum technical skills.

The New South Wales Attorney General has finally acted with legislation to make this illegal.  A bill passing through parliament will make it an offence if those recording or distributing an image are aware of - or reckless to the possibility - that the subject of the image has not consented.  The law will also criminalize threatening to record or distribute an image and carry a penalty of up to three years prison.

An intimate image is defined as a photo or a video of a persons private parts or a person engaged in a private act that a reasonable person would expect to be private.    This would include manipulation of photos taken in social media and doctored to appear as pornographic material.  Displaying would go beyond appearance in social media.  Pasting such matter in a public place would constitute such an offence.

Like the credence given to AVO'S this will probably initially be ignored, but the publicity when the first offenders are given a prison sentence will deliver clarity.  There is also the expectation that what the New South Wales government has seen fit to legislate will be emulated in the Federal parliament. It deserves Australia wide application !