SPECIAL REPORT: Fundamental rights in digital space is a growing challenge for legal teams

ONE OF the fastest-growing areas of concern in internet litigation is the increasing online proliferation of sexually-explicit material, uploaded by third parties without consent — typically for the purpose of humiliating, harassing or blackmailing a victim.

This type of cyber activity is on the rise, particularly with the advent of inexpensive smartphones with advanced capability to produce high-quality film images easily and covertly.

The practice has earned the ubiquitous title “revenge porn” and represents a new and pernicious form of online harassment, which organisations like Women’s Aid and An Garda Síochána are now encountering on the ground. We do, however, need to be conscious that descriptive terms such as revenge porn are often value-laden, and may conjure subliminal messages of culpability or loose morals on the part of a victim.