TORONTO — The Ontario Court of Appeal has reaffirmed a Thunder Bay judge's voyeurism conviction for a man who saved screenshots of his nude girlfriend without her knowledge during video chats.
At the time, the woman lived in Thunder Bay and the man lived in southern Ontario.
After she ended the couple's long-distance relationship, the images were emailed to other individuals.
The ex-boyfriend was charged with six offences arising from the distribution of the photos, and with voyeurism.
He was acquitted on the distribution charge because of evidence that another girlfriend had had the motive and opportunity to distribute the images, thereby creating reasonable doubt for the trial judge.
However, according to a Court of Appeal transcript, the trial judge "had no doubt" that the man had recorded the images, and convicted him of voyeurism.
In appealing the verdict, the man argued that the woman, having willingly posed nude in the video chat, and knowing she was doing so before a camera, could not have had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
He also maintained that it could not be said that he had acted surreptitiously.
"Despite it being well-known that screenshots can readily capture any image on a computer monitor, the complainant never indicated she did not want screenshots taken and the appellant never said he would not take any," the transcript states.
But the Court of Appeal noted the woman's testimony that had she known her boyfriend was saving images on his computer, "she would have been furious and stopped it immediately."
It agreed with the trial judge that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the circumstances, and that the accused's actions violated a tacit agreement "which exists between all intimate partners to consensual sexual activity—namely, that neither one will exceed the parameters of what has been agreed to without obtaining consent."
