The Saskatchewan government is introducing measures to increase the legal actions people can take to stop the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.
This week the Privacy Intimate images -Additional Remedies Amendment Act, 2021 was entered in the Legislature to support existing privacy legislation for victims of non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
Justice Minister and Attorney General Gordon Wyant says the malicious sharing of intimate images is exploitative and the new laws will allow victims to have their images removed from the internet.
“These changes will broaden Saskatchewan’s existing civil remedies to help victims of this despicable behaviour regain control of their intimate images.”
The amendments extend the definition of protected intimate images to digitally altered copies as well as original recordings. The legislation also allows an individual to take legal action if someone has threatened to distribute intimate images of them.
The Act empowers the court to order a defendant to return to the victim any copies of visual recordings and to make every reasonable effort to ensure they are unavailable to others. As well the court may order internet intermediaries to remove or de-index all visual recordings of the victim.
The government indicates these court orders are intended to make it easier for victims to successfully request that online platforms remove their images, something that has been difficult to do in many previous cases.