Sharing pictures without consent

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Aleasha

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27 June 2017
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Hi I recently found out my ex boyfriend has been sharing and offering private pictures of me to other men without my consent. Is there anything I can do legally?
 

Tim W

Lawyer
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28 April 2014
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Hi I recently found out my ex boyfriend has been sharing and offering private pictures of me to other men without my consent. Is there anything I can do legally?
Perhaps you in the realm of what you hear called "revenge porn".
If so, then you may care to start by reading this.

There are several possibilities of things you could do, but which is best suited depends on the facts and circumstances.

It's not easy to make useful suggestions with so little detail available (of course, we do understand why you want to be private).

So, going only by what you have said here, missing facts missing, and with the many
unstated ifs, buts, and maybes not allowed for...

Options range from potentially suing him for defamation (if, say, you lose a job or miss a promotion) through to him being prosecuted for domestic violence offences and/or offences relating to how telecommunications are used.
For example, showing other people pictures of you on his own phone is one thing, but putting images up on a website can, as a matter of law, be different, and potentially more serious.
Think how it's much easier to clean off one phone than it is to remove stuff that is (as net people say) "in the wild".

Some are things that you do (or get a lawyer to do, such as get court orders),
others are things that the police do (prosecute).

There are ifs and but and unless-es and "strings attached" to each path.
The law on this stuff is different in different parts of Australia.
Things can get even more complex (for him, not you) if you were not yet 18 at the time the images were taken.

A couple of other thoughts.
  • Mere embarrassment is not always and automatically enough to support legal action.
  • If you are an adult, and not generally a vulnerable person,
    then your local police may not be all that interested.
  • You may get best mileage from police by speaking to a specialist Domestic Violence officer.
One last thing. In this context, there is no "right to privacy" of the kind people think exists
when they talk about "invading my privacy" or "a breach of privacy".
Which does not mean people can do whatever they want with images of you.
Rather, I mean for you to not pin your hopes on an "angle" that has almost no technical legal weight,
when there may be other ways, that might be more helpful.
When people talk about the law not keeping up with technology, this is an example of what they mean.