Here’s What You Need To Know About The New Revenge Porn Law

If you share private sexual pictures or videos of someone without their consent in England and Wales you could go to jail for two years or get a hefty fine.

If the thought ever crosses your mind to post an intimate picture of your ex online, think again: You could go to jail for two years.

If the thought ever crosses your mind to post an intimate picture of your ex online, think again: You could go to jail for two years.

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A new law came into effect in England and Wales on Thursday that makes it illegal to "disclose private sexual images without consent and with intent to cause distress".

Here are our answers to some questions you may be asking:

This is a huge deal for the victims of revenge porn. There were 149 allegations of revenge-porn-related crimes in England and Wales between 1 January 2012 and 1 July 2014, but only six of them led to any charges or police cautions.

And of the 43 police forces asked for their data on this, the Press Association reported, none provided any.

Conservative MP and former culture secretary Maria Miller told the BBC's Today programme this morning:

By putting this in place the government has given young women the opportunity to protect themselves from their lives being blighted. When you speak to the victims of these crimes, many say that it feels as if you've been virtually raped.

You can't underestimate the impact of having an image distributed to many people around the world.

Not quite.

Uploading pictures of someone was already illegal in certain cases – there are laws against malicious communication and harrassment, for example, and there are very strong penalties for uploading any images of children.

People have been jailed in the UK for revenge porn on harassment charges.

But a conviction for harassment has to be related to more than one incident, and campaigners have been pushing the government to revenge porn a specific offence, which it now is.

And the new law doesn't apply in Northern Ireland and Scotland, where similar laws are being considered.


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