By Liz Snell -
Snapshot
- New offences in NSW include intentionally recording and/or distributing an intimate image without consent, threatening to record and/or distribute an intimate image without consent and contravening an order such as a take down order.
- Where a threat to share an image is made, there is no requirement to prove the image exists.
- Consistent and uniform legislation should be enacted in each Australian State and Territory and mirror any enacted Commonwealth offence.
The Crimes Amendment (Intimate Images) Act 2017 (NSW), which will amend the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), is important legislation that criminalises one aspect of technology-facilitated stalking and abuse, that is, the non-consensual recording and/or sharing of intimate images. It was introduced on 24 May 2017, a few days after the Law Crime and Community Safety Council agreed to the National Statement of Principles relating to the criminalisation of the non-consensual sharing of intimate images (‘National Principles’). It received assent on 27 June. At the time of writing, the Act is yet to be proclaimed.
In introducing the Bill, the NSW Attorney General, the Hon Mark Speakman SC MP, acknowledged that ‘Parliamentary inquiries in both New South Wales and at the Commonwealth level … have highlighted the prevalence of this behaviour in the context of domestic violence … [which] the Government … strongly condemns’ (24 May 2017).
