April is World Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Sexual assault can occur offline and online – recent surveys have revealed that more and more women are experiencing digital harms such as harassment, cyberstalking and revenge porn. Below, Simran Toor, lawyer and CEO of SG Her Empowerment (“SHE”), shares how you can seek help.

When Melissa* (not her real name) was 18 years old, her ex-boyfriend, whom she thought she could trust, shared her nude images out of spite after the break-up. Seven years later, she still has not been successful in removing all her images from the internet.

Such cases of revenge porn, a form of online sexual abuse that involves the distribution of sexually explicit content of an individual without their consent, is unfortunately not uncommon, and can make the victims feel as if they are the ones at fault.

Here, Simran Toor, lawyer and CEO of SG Her Empowerment (“SHE”), dispenses her advice based on different scenarios.

Filming someone without their consent is a serious and deeply distressing intrusion of privacy. In Singapore, doing so can amount to the criminal offence of voyeurism under Section 377BB of the Penal Code. This is a serious crime which is punishable by imprisonment.

If you have been filmed this way, it is best to seek out both legal advice and emotional support. A lawyer will help you understand your legal rights and talk you through what to expect if your case is investigated by the authorities or goes to court. Understandably, going through something like this can take an emotional toll. It is thus also important to ensure that you have support on the emotional plane, whether via a trusted friend or family member, or even a counsellor.

I recently broke up with my boyfriend, and found that after our breakup, explicit photos/videos that I sent to him privately during the course of our relationship are now being distributed without my consent. I feel so helpless that my nudes – which were meant to be private – are now circulating all over. What should I do?

NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) – also commonly known as “revenge porn” – can cause serious and long-term emotional impact or reputational damage to the person featured in the photos/videos being circulated. This type of conduct is illegal, and can amount to one or more criminal offences, all of which are punishable by imprisonment.

In Singapore, it is an offence for anyone to:

  1. Distribute or threaten to distribute intimate photos/videos
  2. Distribute voyeuristic photos/videos
  3. Possess or gain access to voyeuristic or intimate photos/videos
  4. Distribute obscene videos

If this happens to you, it is advisable to take action quickly in order to stem the circulation of the material. As a first step, you should do an internet search to ascertain where the material has been posted. This can be done using a reverse image search. Gather as much evidence as you can, and take screenshots of each platform or app in which you see your images appearing. Try to ensure that the platform name and the date or time-stamps showing when the material was published or shared online are clearly visible in your screenshots. Once you have the proof you need, you can contact the relevant platform administrators or file in-app reports, asking for the material to be removed.

Unfortunately, it is much harder to ascertain the extent of the spread over private chat messenger services such as Telegram or WeChat, but if you do come to know that the material concerned is being disseminated there, the same steps would apply: gather evidence and report it to the app.

Sadly, once such material as found its way into cyberspace, there is no guarantee that it will ever be fully removed. It is best that you continue to do such searches from time to time, to see if your images have popped up again. If so, the necessary steps will have to be taken to have them removed.

The website stopNCII.org offers technology that could help to track and remove the spread of your photos/images, to a degree. You can visit the website and provide a copy of the photo/video concerned. The site will generate a digital fingerprint (called a “hash”) of the photo/video. The internet platforms that participate in this effort will then look for matches to the hash on their sites, and remove these from their systems if they violate their intimate image abuse policy. StopNCII.org will continue to periodically look for fingerprint matches on participating websites. You can track the process of your case over time with your assigned case number.

As we now know, devices and clouds can be hacked, and once such material is leaked, the spread is difficult to control. As a matter of caution, it is advisable to refrain from sharing intimate photos/videos of yourself with any other person, even if you trust them fully.

SHECARES@SCWO CENTRE

The SHECARES@SCWO centre for online harms could be a resource if you are unsure what to do next. This is Singapore’s’ first one-stop centre for victims or survivors of online harms, which provides holistic victim support and a safe space for victims and survivors to turn to when they encounter online harms.

SheCares@SCWO provides the following services:

  1. A telephone helpline and textline Callers can speak to a trained counsellor, who will help determine if it will be helpful for you to attend a counselling session or a legal clinic at the centre.
  2. Counselling Counsellors trained in trauma- informed care will provide free counselling sessions for victims or survivors of online harms.
  3. Pro bono legal advice Legal volunteers will offer free assistance at legal clinics, to help you understand your legal rights and possible recourse avenues, including whether a police report can be filed. The lawyers can also provide help with filing in- app reports to the platform where the online harm in question is taking place, so that it can decide what action to take.

If you would like to seek assistance, please reach out to the centre’s hotline at 8001 01 4616 or e-mail shecares@scwo.org.sg.

Text: Cheryl Lai-Lim/Her World