Revenge porn to become a criminal offence

‘Revenge porn’ will become a criminal offence under proposed laws.

The Labour Party wants to toughen up the laws around cyberbullying, online stalking, and harassment to prevent the sharing of intimate pictures without someone’s permission.

Brendan Howlin said Ireland’s harassment laws haven’t been updated since the advent of the text message and that his party’s bill will address this: “The measures we are proposing seek to bring Ireland’s regulations into the 21st century, by broadening the definition of communication to cover all electronic, written and spoken words. For example, this would mean a threatening ‘iMessage’ sent on an Apple electronic device or a Whatsapp or Facebook message would be covered by law, which is currently not the case.”

At the launch of the bill yesterday, Labour councillor Martina Genockey told how she received online rape threats when she was running for the party during the 2014 local elections. Ms Genockey, a councillor in south Dublin County Council, said: “It was my first time running for political office, everything was new to me and while I expected a lot of debate, a lot of questions, some level of abuse and people wanting nothing to do with me, I was not expecting the level of abuse and harassment that I received through social media. I strongly believe this behaviour has no place in society.”

She said online abuse is almost impossible to avoid as “it follows you home and even the most private spaces feel compromised and unsafe”. “When it goes too far I believe that we need to be able to do something about it, we need to know that the laws are there to back up someone who is being harassed and allow them to claim back their personal space and time,” she said.

The changes being put forward by Labour set out the broadest possible definition of communication of information by any means. This includes the communication of information that is generated, processed, transmitted, received, recorded, stored or displayed by electronic means or in electronic form. It also updates the offence of harassment and allows for stalking to count as an aggravating factor in sentencing.

The bill also creates a new of offence of distributing an intimate image without consent — commonly referred to as revenge porn. This offence would carry a six-month jail term and/or a fine.

Mr Howlin said: “Sadly, women too are particularly targeted, and Labour’s bill moves to protect against so-called ‘revenge porn’ by creating a new offence.”