Perth Voice Interactive

WA’S Youth Advisory Council has called for Australia’s eSafety commissioner to be given broader powers to help young people tackle the growing problem of image-based abuse.

YACWA made the recommendation in a submission to the Cook government, which is reviewing the Criminal Law Amendment (Intimate Images) Act, saying current laws do not go far enough to protect young Western Australians.

YACWA said young people are “disproportionately” affected by image-based abuse because of the volume of intimate images they are sharing online. 

A federal health department survey of young people in 2021 found that while they were aware of the risks of sending sexy images, that wasn’t deterring them. Of those aged 14-18 who participated in the survey, 78.7 per cent had received a sexual photo, and 58.6 per cent had sent one.

Blackmail

IBA involves the distribution, or threat of distribution of intimate images without the consent of the person in the image. Revenge porn and blackmail also falls under this category. 

IBA can also affect people who have not participated in sexting, as fake, altered, or AI-generated images are also prolific.

It can be used as a weapon for perpetrators of domestic, family, and sexual violence.

YACWA policy officer Claudia Carles authored the review and says orders to remove intimate images after they had been shared are not effective enough to prevent the proliferation of IBA. 

Due to the nature of the internet and social media, images can end up “far beyond the reach” of the state government and its current powers to prevent IBA, Ms Carles said. 

“There is a very scary complexity of images ending up in international servers.” 

YACWA says the investment in cybersecurity is necessary, allowing the eSafety commissioner to track, locate, and destroy images after they have been shared. 

National cyber safety educator and Surf Online Safe founder Paul Litherland contributed to the review and says the biggest issue young people face is the removal of images which have been shared by another person to a wider group of people. 

Mr Litherland says current legislation is “working well”, but social media networks and companies need to be more proactive when removing images from platforms. 

“What I’m pushing for is for the governments now to introduce an ability to act on networks,” Mr Litherland said.

“Many of them aren’t working actively enough to remove content on request.”

A major issue is that some networks consider ownership of an image to be of the person who shares it further, and not necessarily of the victim who originally sent it. 

Mr Litherland says this removes the responsibility for networks to act, and updates to the legislation needs to incentivise them to do so. 

“If they don’t remove it, then we can take legal action against them that will have consequences.” 

The review was conducted as part of YACWA’s Youth Educating Peers project, as part of a push to help young people feel safe when choosing to engage in digital sexual practices. 

The review also recommended that the Criminal Law Amendment (Intimate Images) Act be updated so children under 16 are not charged with “producing child exploitation material” if they have taken an intimate photograph of themselves which has been sent and forwarded. 

Recommendations also included the need for peer-led education addressing sexuality, consent, and relationships, especially when it comes to safe digital sexual practices. 

Intimate

The review also detailed the need for the definition of ‘intimate’ to include images involving religious and cultural attire as part of a more inclusive and protective approach, as current WA legislation does not specify that IBA can violate cultural and religious boundaries. 

Ms Carles said state legislation needed to catch up to federal law, which already covers religious and cultural provisions. 

“At the moment, the definition the Western Australian definition of intimate image is pretty narrow,” she said. 

“It already exists federally so it shouldn’t be a big ask.”

The review is available to view on the Policy and Advocacy page on the YACWA website, yacwa.org.au

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER