In 2015, Florida became the 17th state to enact what is commonly known as a revenge porn statute. The statute criminalizes the distribution of nude images – along with information identifying the subject of the images – without the consent of the subject. Individuals charged with violating this law face conviction of anything from a misdemeanor and up to one year in prison to a felony and five years in prison. The charging level depends on how many times someone has previously been convicted under the revenge porn statute.
With most people in today’s society having access to smartphones with relatively high photograph and video capabilities, the chances that an individual who becomes sexually involved with someone could become the subject of revenge porn have increased significantly. According to an ABC Action News report, one out of every 25 Americans has been the victim of revenge porn.
Unsurprisingly, there are websites that traffic in this sort of material and have used the embarrassment that such material can cause to extort the subjects of the images, often charging large sums of money to remove the content. For the victims, there likely remains a feeling of exposure, as there is no way to be certain the images will not reappear at some later date.
States have stepped up and started the process of criminalizing this activity. This is important from a deterrence standpoint as well as from a liability standpoint. It authorizes police and other officials to seek out the person responsible for releasing the content, which provides people with the type of support they did not have access to previously.
As with most laws, and especially in the world of cybercrime, questions arise about its effectiveness. Specifically, criminality under Florida’s revenge porn law extends only to images posted on a website, which means that widely-shared text messages or emails likely would not be covered under the law.
Another question is how you determine with certainty that content on a website was posted by the original owner. Data is constantly under the threat of theft, and when it is stolen, the individual from whom it was stolen loses all control over its distribution. What if a hacker decides to post nude images stolen from an ex-spouse’s phone that were originally taken with consent of the other spouse?
“These laws are designed to protect individuals from the horror of revenge porn, but likely do not do enough to discourage dissemination in other areas of electronic communication,” said Douglas I. Leifert, a Florida Criminal Defense Attorney with the Law Offices of Leifert & Leifert. “Additionally, this law opens the door to people being prosecuted for offenses they did not commit due to having information stolen. Everyone must be aware of the need to keep private information heavily protected.”
