THUNDER BAY – Think twice before sending nude photos, police warn as they face an increasing prevalence of people who are finding graphic images of themselves on the Internet without their consent.
In November, the Thunder Bay Police Service received four complaints from people who had become aware of intimate images they had privately shared to another person had surfaced on various websites.
Cyber Crime Unit Det. Const. Kathy Williams-Waruk urged people to refrain from sending sultry material, even to a significant other.
“Once it’s out there, it’s going to be out there forever. Once you send that picture, you can’t take it back,” Williams-Waruk said on Tuesday.
While revenge porn – the distribution, publishing, transmitting or selling of intimate images of another person without their knowledge or consent – is illegal in Canada, police have run into issues when the photos have popped up on international websites.
“The problem is it’s hard for Thunder Bay police to research where these images are being sent from, even though they’re being uploaded in Canada or in Thunder Bay,” Williams-Waruk said, adding other jurisdictions have different laws relating to revenge porn and investigators have challenges obtaining information from the site operators.
“It’s really difficult for us to investigate this properly and find out who’s actually doing it.”
Williams-Waruk said the complainants have been a combination of adults and high school students.
Sending either nude images or photos focusing on clothed genital areas of a person under the age of 18 constitutes child pornography even if it’s a person sending photos of themselves, she cautioned.
The cyber crime unit works with the police service’s school resource officers to provide education to students about the implications of sending nude photos.
“We don’t necessarily want to be charging a high school child with distributing child pornography and getting that on their record at such a young age when they might not really realize what they’re doing is wrong,” Williams-Waruk said.
“With the adults, it’s kind of different because they should know better, not that they always do.”
