Over 170 people have been arrested in the UK since new “revenge porn” laws were enacted backf in April, but experts have claimed this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Section 33 o the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 was set up to deal with a growing social problem in the UK facilitated by near ubiquitous consumer technology: smartphones and social media.
From 13 April, “disclosing private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress” was made illegal, so political think tank, Parliament Street, decided to see recently how many complaints had been filed with police.
Submitting Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to 18 UK police forces, it found that many of the 175 incidents recorded since April have been dropped due to “insufficient evidence” – suggesting victims are too frightened to give evidence.
Greater Manchester police force handled the most incidents (31), followed by Northamptonshire, which conducted 21 investigations but only charged one individual.
Of those investigations which revealed the social channels used to post sexual images and films, Facebook (21) appeared the most popular, followed by SnapChat (3) and WhatsApp (2).
Nick Viney EMEA vice president at Intel Security, explained that recent research from the security giant found that over half (55%) of UK smartphone users had “intimate” content stored on their devices, with 96% claiming they trust their partners not to post online.
It’s clear from the FoI results, however, that the UK’s netizens should be more cautious when it comes to taking and storing such images.
“With many of these incidents taking place over social media apps, the importance of parents having open, ongoing conversations to ensure they keep abreast of the latest social networks, online trends and security measures is key,” Viney continued.
“Nearly two-fifths (37%) of children admit to using Snapchat every day and almost 1 in 10 (9%) of parents admit to having set up a Snapchat account for their child – worrying statistics for parents who haven’t taken security precautions into account.”
Parents in particular need to get fully up to speed with the latest technologies, so they can provide guidance to their children and know which security and privacy settings to enable on their kids’ devices, he claimed.