Revenge Pornography

Debate between Maria Miller and Martin Horwood

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend puts her finger on the main issue. The law predates the digital age and as a result of the work I have done I would say that it has not kept pace with the challenges we face today. I urge her to listen to some of my later remarks, which might address some of the issues she raises.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to the people who are already doing a great deal to support those who are affected by these heinous crimes: the UK Safer Internet Centre, particularly Laura Higgins, and, of course, the experts at Women’s Aid, who are doing a great deal of work in this area. I also thank Saffo Dias, who helped me with her expert legal advice as I prepared for the debate. It is the matter of law that we must focus on.

The UK Safer Internet Centre has identified between 20 and 30 websites displaying revenge pornography that are available for people to view in the UK. Some are pay-to-view, some are free to access, but all display sexually explicit images of women that have been posted without their permission. The situation in the United States of America is so severe that three states have already passed new laws criminalising revenge pornography and more are considering following suit.

The problem, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, is that the law we have predates the digital internet age and fails to cope adequately with such situations. In many ways we are trying to tackle digital problems with an analogue law. We now need to look at that in more detail. Some have sought to dismiss it as something that affects only the younger generation. Although the images are for the most part electronic, many have been scanned and clearly predate digital cameras, so the issue could affect many people of all ages.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing the debate, which is on a subject that is very important to one of my constituents as well. One of the problems she has faced is not so much the existence of the website itself, but the search engine results, which almost always put the website at the top of the search. Google, while very sympathetic, will not act without a legal sanction. Is that something she thinks it might be possible to address by changing the law?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must have the law in place first. As I will say later, if the act was illegal, of course Google, Yahoo and others would respond accordingly. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton is that at this point in time the situation is, at best, confused. I hope that the Minister can help to shed some light on the situation today.

As with so much to do with the internet, as a society we are constantly running to try to keep up. We all agree that the internet is a force for good. For the most part, internet service providers, social media organisations and many more want the internet to liberate us to think freely, to inform ourselves and to see our backyard as the whole globe, not just our street, village or town. However, a force for good can also provide a platform for those with less worthy aims and ideals. It is in that regard that the Government do have a role.

I applaud the work that the Government have already done in that area, for example to address illegal online child pornography. We heard in the news today about the sheer scale of the problem and the use of the dark net by those who want to access that sort of appalling imagery without the threat of being traced. I saw for myself how the UK is leading the way in cross-border action on the issue when I visited the Washington-based Centre for Missing and Exploited Children last year. It is vital that that work continues.

Internet revenge porn does not involve children, but it does use sexually explicit images to publicly abuse and humiliate a victim. An image that could have reasonably been expected to remain private can, with the press of a button, be distributed without permission to thousands of individuals in seconds, through the dedicated websites I have already mentioned, but also through a number of bespoke applications such as WhatsApp, Kik, Snapchat, which has 5 million active users every day, Facebook Poke—and the list goes on.

The case studies provided to hon. Members by Women’s Aid in preparation for today’s debate are, at best, alarming, demonstrating how social media and the posting of images, or indeed the threat of posting images, are being used to threaten and intimidate women. Some of the people Women’s Aid has supported have had such images taken under duress and then distributed to family members, friends and employers. Too often the victims of such crimes have found it difficult to get action—to get the police to take the crime seriously or to get the website owner to take the material down. One revenge porn website goes a stage further still by asking victims to pay a $400 fee to have the material removed—it is called reputation management, but I can think of other words to call it—although I understand that some material has been known to reappear on the same site.

It is clear that the police are struggling to identify a way to support women who have been subjected to revenge pornography. There are, of course, civil law protections under copyright, but few people have the resources to pursue that route, and does that level of legal sanction really reflect the nature of the offence? I do not believe that it does.

Some revenge porn postings are part of a pattern of behaviour. Given the nature of the material involved, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 could be used to provide protection in some cases. However, a series of events would have to be involved—not a one-off, which many of these postings are. I am concerned that the existing legal framework does not provide the protection required. Perhaps the Minister will detail how many revenge pornography cases have been prosecuted under the 1997 Act, to indicate how effective it is already.

The days of treating the internet as the wild west are, I am glad to say, long gone. Freedom on the internet is not unconditional. The challenge for the Government is to be able to respond swiftly and nimbly to new cybercrimes as they present themselves. Today there is a clear opportunity for the Minister to provide leadership and reassurance to our constituents. There is a need to demonstrate clearly, as is happening in the US, that revenge pornography will not be tolerated in a modern free society and that loopholes in the law will be closed, and quickly. In the US, a number of states have decided to criminalise such actions and we should take a similar approach.

The Serious Crime Bill will shortly be before the House. It would provide a vehicle, perhaps under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, to establish as a serious criminal offence the distribution, without permission of the subject, of a sexual image or recording. That would sit well alongside other similar offences in the 1997 Act, such as voyeurism and indecent exposure.

Secondly, the Crown Prosecution Service is in the process of updating guidance to courts on the prosecution of domestic violence. Although not all cases of revenge pornography involve domestic violence, many do. According to detailed research done by Women’s Aid, 45% of domestic violence survivors have experienced online abuse in some form. As part of the current consultation process, which I believe closes next month, changes need to be considered to ensure proper recognition of abusive online behaviour as yet another part of the growing spectrum of domestic violence. The proposals in the consultation do not seem to cover online abuse; perhaps the Minister could clarify whether such a change could be made.

Then, of course, there is the role of the police. The same research identifies that three quarters of women who have been victims of cyber-based domestic violence said that the police simply did not know how to respond. A critical part of getting the issue right is ensuring that the strategic policing priority given to domestic violence is turned into operational reality on the ground—something raised by the recent Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary report, which identified that victims of domestic violence are still not always taken seriously by the police or, indeed, believed. That is a problem, particularly when it comes to cyber-based domestic violence.

We need to be assured that there is a strong programme of training on the nature of cybercrime and its corrosive effect. I very much welcome the National Crime Agency’s focus on cybercrime and hope that it can be expanded to include revenge pornography.

Finally, the social media and ISPs need to play their part. They should improve their policies, respond so that people can use their services safely and ensure that, when images are posted that should not be, there are clear ways to take action. I know from my discussions with Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others that they, as major global businesses, do not want their business model to include support for those who break the law. If revenge pornography were clearly illegal, they would, I am sure, ensure that such sites could not be promoted through their search engines. That issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton earlier.

This debate is about making sure that the law of the land supports women properly and about sending a clear message to the perpetrators of these crimes—that their behaviour should be seen as criminal and will not be tolerated. It is about saying that we as a nation show total abhorrence for all sexual abuse against women in whatever form, whether it occurs offline or online.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Martin Horwood

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

My constituent, Jackie Sallis, acquired her lifelong disability at birth, has tried but invariably failed to hold down a job and has been in receipt of disability living allowance. As regards the review that the Minister has already mentioned, will she reassure us that adults with lifelong conditions will not be subject to a regime of constant medical assessments that try to prove them fit for work, which will be stressful for them, ultimately pointless and, presumably, very expensive for the public purse?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. As we pull together the procedures for the revisions to disability living allowance, we will consider just those sorts of things. We want to ensure that it is proportionate and that regular reviews are considered, so that the allowance can be given to those with the most need without putting too much pressure on those who will never move away from DLA.