Cybercrime and Security: Revenge Pornography, Laws, and Policies

This essay delves into the cybercrime of revenge pornography, examining its definition, impact, and the legal frameworks implemented to address it. It discusses the unethical practice of distributing private, sexually explicit images or videos without consent, often for the purposes of harassment, blackmail, or revenge. The essay highlights the severe psychological and personal consequences for victims and explores how governments, particularly in Australia, have responded through legislation, civil penalties, and criminal codes. It analyzes specific laws in South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales, detailing the offenses criminalized and the punishments imposed. Furthermore, the essay touches on the role of the Australian eSafety Commissioner and the importance of addressing this form of cybercrime. The essay aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the issue and the legal responses, including suggestions for improvement.

Running head: Cyber-crime and security
Revenge pornography
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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In the current technological world, the invention of several new technologies and
innovations has turned out to be blessing by simplifying the industrial as well as day to day
activities. However, with the increasing technological advantages, the cyber criminals or
hackers have also become smatter. Cybercrime has become a disastrous, yet common
computer crime in the current age (McGuire and Dowling 2013). The term cybercrime
indicates any type of crime, which takes place online. The cybercriminals or cyber attackers
often commit dangerous crimes by targeting the computer devices or networks. The
cybercrime gathers several offensive issues such as, copyright infringement, sextortion,
unwanted mass-surveillance, webcam blackmailing, hacking, child pornography, revenge
pornography and many others that that can harm the physical, metal as well as financial
security of the victim (Florêncio and Herley 2013). The smart tactics used by the criminals
often create immense difficulties for the IT specialists to investigate about the same.
Nevertheless, the one good information is that, the state, local or federal laws are becoming
comparatively strict regarding the destruction of the cybercrimes by implementing several
resources to stop and responding to the cyber threats and crimes. This essay is focus on one
major cybercrime “revenge pornography”. Additionally, a brief discussion regarding the topic
along with the government laws related to the offence is going to be discuss here. Lastly, the
essay will suggest some improvements that might make the existing policy more
sophisticated.
The disastrous cybercrime named Revenge pornography upholds the capabilities of
severely offending and causing harm to the victim as well as the society as a whole. Revenge
pornography describes the unethical practice of circulating confidential or private image or
videos of an individual, majorly at the time while they are participating in sex acts (Salter and
Crofts 2015). Moreover, it also describes the distribution of different sexually explicit videos
or images of the victims without considering their permission. The main purpose for which

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the criminal makes the victim’s image or video viral online is to offend, blackmail and give
social harassment to the victim (Koppelman 2015). Those sexually explicit videos and
images might be made by one partner, who is involved in an intimate relationship with
consent or knowledge of the particular subject. However, in most cases the videos or images
are taken without the victims’ knowledge (Hall and Hearn 2017). Revenge pornography may
lead to higher mental health impact for the victims. The Victims might cope with serious
long-term psychological as well as personal consequences, and even those disseminated
videos or images might continue to harm the victim throughout their live (Kamal and
Newman 2016). The term Revenge pornography is also identified by the name non-
consensual pornography and comes under cyber stalking or cyber harassment. Recently,
importance of this unethical disastrous phenomenon have well-understood and the
government is also providing several enacted legislation, which criminalizes and opposes it
(Citron and Franks 2014).
The act of uploading pornographies having the intention to harm the victim mentally,
is now consider as one crime and the criminal has to face different punishment as per the
government legislations (Henry, Powell and Flynn 2017). All most all the countries in the
world have imposed several laws for eliminating the particular phenomenon. According to
the researches carried out in Australia, it has been found that, 23% of the respondents were
found to be the victim of this act. Meanwhile, it has been noticed that, among all, 20% of the
respondents were found to be the victim of release of private, sexual or nude photographs,
which are taken and uploaded without their knowledge. In addition, the survey has provided
an overall idea that, the main motive of this type of phenomenon is to threaten the victim by
distributing their sexual explicit videos, photographs and nude images without their
knowledge. Additionally, some self-disclosure of the Image Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA) has
been found in some research, which is about 10%.

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The IBSA or revenge pornographies are serious and problematic concept to be
addressed. Firstly, firstly, it indicates that the intentions behind such distribution are
exclusively about taking revenge and blackmailing the victim (McGlynn and Rackley 2017).
The second thing is that, the term pornography indicates that the victim was somewhere
complicit while producing such pornographic images. However, among them, many images
may not be at all pornographic, and do not serve the pornographic purpose. Thirdly, there
exist understandings that the revenge pornography is all about distribution of sexual images
without the victims’ consent (DeKeseredy and Schwartz 2016). Yet, there exist some other
activities such as, the recording of different type of consensual sex acts and sexual assaults as
well as threats and to upload or distribute the intimate images and videos, without having idea
of where exactly it is going to be distributed. However, like other countries, the Australian
government has imposed several laws and legislations for criminalizing and eliminating such
acts. Some of the laws are, Civil Suits, Civil penalties and criminal codes,
One important Australian government legislation related to the revenge pornography
or IBSA is he Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth). It includes different number of offences within
the telecommunications section of legislation, which indicates, using of a carriage service for
child pornography subjects, creating threat for causing serious future harms and creating
threats for killing. Additionally, the rules related to the IBSA is described in the section
474.17A, where it has explained that, using carriage service to harass, menace cause offence’
(Crimes Legislation Amendment (Telecommunications Offences and Other Measures) Act
(No. 2) 2004). The actual wording of the article says that, ‘An individual will said to be guilty
is guilty of the offence if: “(a) the person uses a carriage service; and (b) the person does so
in a way (whether by the method of use or the content of the communication, or both) that
reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or
offensive”. In addition, the punishment for this type of criminal activity, according to this act

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is, 3 years imprisonment. The punishment provided to the criminal under this act, adds a
strength to it (Broadhurst 2017).
Only Victoria and South Australia have imposed specific criminal laws regarding this
types of criminal behaviours. In addition to that, recently, New South Wales is considering
several new possibilities to encounter the revenge pornography or IBSA, and so as the
Western Australia as well as the Northern Territory is also implementing several laws for
providing protection to the victims and punishing the criminals. In the year 2013, South
Australia, being the first Australian jurisdiction to implement the offences criminalising
regarding the criminalized act of revenge pornography or non-consensual distribution of the
invasive videos or images. (Summary Offences (Filming Offences) Amendment Act 2013
(SA)) under the Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA) (s26C). However, the legislation is not
solely concerned about the non-consensual sexual images or nude videos. This legislation
explains that, “any still or moving image of an individual – (a) engaged in private act; or (b)
in a state of undress such that the person’s bare genital or anal region is visible”. The major
strength of the article is that, if any person found guilty under this act, he or she has to punish
with a maximum two years of imprisonment, along with a fine of $10,000. However, in any
case the victim is a miner that is under seventeen years old, the criminal has to face 4 years
imprisonment with a fine of $20,000 (Bunn 2016).
However, in the 2016, the South Australian legislation had amended to introduce several
other things regarding the offence of threatening and blackmailing the victim regarding the
distribution of nude image or the videos recorded during performing intimate sexual activities,
(Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA), s26DA). The maximum punishment for this is approximately
1 year of imprisonment and fine of $5,000. In case the victim is a miner, the punishment is
different, that is maximum of 2 years imprisonment with a fine of $10,000 (Quilter et al. 2016).

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After South Australia, Victoria has registered as the second Australian jurisdiction to
impose several rules and regulations for IBSA. In the year 2014, the country government has
introduced several laws for intentionally distribution (section 41D A) and threaten for distribution
(section 41D B), of private or sexual picture or videos of an individual without his or her consent,
which is under the “Summary Offences Act 1966 (Vic) (Crimes Amendment (Sexual Offences and
Other Matters) Act 2014 (Vic))”. This particular Victorian act explains that, “intimate image’ is
defined as ‘a moving or still image that depicts (a) a person engaged in sexual activity; (b) a
person in a manner or content that is sexual; or (c) the genital or anal region of a person, or, in
the case of a female, the breasts”. In addition to that, it also explains that before reaching to any
conclusion, the community standards related to the acceptable conduct will be taken into
consideration. Along with that, the regards for the content as well as nature of the video or
particular photograph, the exact circumstances where the video or photo was captured and
distributed will also measured. In addition, the circumstance of the individual, who is depicted in
that image or video and the degree in which his/her privacy is affected, is also one major thing to
be concerned about. The punishment for violating this Act, is maximum of 2 years of
imprisonment for distribution or 1 year imprisonment for blackmailing and threat of the
distribution (Quilter et al. 2016).
In the mid of August 2017, one new legislation related to the revenge pornography and
IBSA behaviour was introduced by the New South Wales government. This act mainly focuses
on the recording of intimate pictures or videos without consent of the victim, distribution of the
same without victim’s consent and threatening or blackmailing the victim for recording and
distributing intimate photos. This act is known by the name Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) (section
91P, section 91Q and section 91R) (Crimes Amendment (Intimate Images) Act 2017 No 29
(NSW)). In order to give justice to the victim, the government has decided to give maximum of 3
years of imprisonment to the cyber criminal. The exact words of the particular legislation says
that, “intimate images’ as ‘an image of a person’s private parts, or of a person engaged in a

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private act, in circumstances in which a reasonable person would reasonably expect to be
afforded privacy”. According to this act, the images which shows the depictions of an
individual’s genital and anal area, whether covered by the underwear or bare, or else, images
showing breasts of a transgender or a female are identified as offensive. In addition, this
legislation also covers several different kind of private photos, such as using a toilet, bathing
undressing, showering, or involvement of the person in the sexual act, which are mainly
ordinarily not done in the public place’. In addition to the penalty, another major strength of this
legislation is that, it includes the acts of ‘morph porn’, in which, the image of the victim is
changed or manipulated.
Australians, under the act of civil penalties, uphold the right to report regarding the
uploading of sexual images and videos without consent of the Australian Government Office.
The Australian eSafety Commissioner has the rights of conducting investigate regarding
issues and enforce necessary civil penalties against the individual, who is involved in
uploading such unethical things. (Section 19C, Commonwealth Act). Additionally, any
individual involved in distribution of such subjects, without acknowledgement of the person
involved in it, will also face civil penalties (Section 44Aof Enhancing Online Safety Act
(2015) (Cth)). The decided civil penalties for conducting this type of offences are A$525,000
for corporations and $105,000 for single individuals.
Revenge pornography is not an unethical activity, it is a crime and hindering such
activity is one matter of concern. However, implementing legislation and enforcements
sometimes create for the stakeholders. These are as follows;
 Lack of necessary evidence
 Resource restriction
 Lack of awareness regarding such matters and the related legislations
 Boundaries of the jurisdictions

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 Minimal knowledge of digital and social media
These challenges clearly contradict the survey data of 23% respondents becoming the
victim of IBSA. Therefore, it reflects the ineffectiveness of existing policies that builds
connection among the challenges and effectiveness of the legislation. However, in order to
get rid of such criminal activities, it is vital for the country people to get aware as well as
spread awareness regarding the matter. In addition, every people should gather knowledge
about the existing suitable legislations for such activities.
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be acknowledged that, IBSA or revenge
pornography is a dangerous crime that has the potential to destroy an individual’s mental
health and social life.

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Reference
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