Victims will get help to remove online sexual images under new scheme

The issue made the headlines last year, when thousands of pictures and videos, mainly of Irish women, were shared on forums without their permission.

Victims of image-based sexual violence will get help to have their photos removed from the internet under a new scheme to be announced today.

Under the new scheme, victims will be encouraged to report the sharing of illegal content online to Hotline.ie/report, and will receive help from the organisation to get the images or video removed from the internet. 

Independent research commissioned by the Department of Justice found that one adult in 20 claims to have had an intimate image of themselves shared to an online or social media site without consent. This rises to one in 10 among 18-24 and 25-37 year olds.

The issue made the headlines last year, when thousands of pictures and videos, mainly of Irish women, were shared on forums without their permission.

Many of the images were taken without the women's knowledge or consent in changing rooms or while they were sleeping, while others were taken from various platforms including OnlyFans, Tinder, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Hotline.ie is a government-backed resource where members of the public can anonymously report suspected illegal content online, with 10,583 reports made to the site in 2020. The organisation found there had been a 142% increase in child sexual abuse material which appeared to be 'self-generated' images or videos. 

The passing of Coco's Law last year made the sharing of the images illegal, but experts warned in February of a "collector culture" in Ireland among a number of men. 

The laws come with up to seven-year prison sentences. Coco’s Law, otherwise known as the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act, was enacted in February and created new offences criminalising the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton, who will launch the scheme this morning, said that the sharing of images was abuse, regardless of motivation.

“Sharing an intimate image of someone without their consent is abhorrent, and can have long-lasting and harmful emotional and mental health effects.

Sharing or threatening to share intimate images is a form of abuse, and there are no excuses for it. Motivations don’t matter."

The helpline will be launched by Goss Media CEO Alexandra Ryan. Five years ago, a man Alexandra was in an intimate relationship with secretly recorded a video of them together. 

The video was later shared by someone else without her consent, which she said left her "helpless and alone".

The Department's independent research found that while only a small cohort of people has shared an intimate image without consent, the most common motivations people had were: for fun; they didn’t think it was a big deal; or to cause harm or distress to the person in the image.