Cyber-flashing

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate; we all wait for the Minister’s response. She touched on the issue of a consent-based approach. That touches on the core wrong, which is that it is a non-consensual sexual act. Does she join me in urging the Minister to look at what is happening in Texas, California, New York, Virginia and Wisconsin, all of which are adopting a consent-based approach when legislating for this offence?

[Fay Jones]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. Looking through the prism of consent empowers victims and lowers the threshold for people to take this forward. Consent is extremely important. The lawful consensual sharing of images between adults is fine and appropriate if it involves free choice, but it is important to recognise when that crosses the line, and that is through consent.

To my hon. Friend’s point, a consent-based offence covers all forms of cyber-flashing, regardless of the motives of the sender. Motive requirements create an unjustified hierarchy of abuses and victims, which does not reflect victims’ experiences. Technology companies, the media, politicians and employers all have a part to play in developing policies and practices to challenge everyday sexism, structural sexism and harmful sexual behaviours.

I want to point out the work that Bumble is doing. Bumble is a dating app on which women initiate the conversation, and its ethos is around protecting those who use the app. Not only does Bumble have a one-strike-and-out policy for people who are reported for lewd activity, but it has “private detector” technology that recognises and blurs explicit images, and offers recipients the chance to view the images or block the senders. That is industry-leading technology, and I commend those at Bumble for taking that approach. They have been involved in other initiatives around the world, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said.

I had best draw my remarks to a close because I know that we all want to hear from the Minister. It is imperative that we criminalise cyber-flashing in England and Wales as soon as possible. Every day without an offence in place means that victims are denied an effective route to justice. Let us lead the way by continuing the progress that the Government have already made, and make cyber-flashing illegal once and for all.