A 39-year-old man in the UK was sentenced to more than a year in prison on Tuesday for sending unsolicited images of his genitals to a 15-year-old girl and a woman in her 60s, according to a press release from Essex Police. The teen girl was left “overwhelmed and crying” according to the Guardian.
Nicholas Hawkes pleaded guilty to two counts of “sending a photograph or film of genitals to cause alarm, distress or humiliation.” Hawkes sent the images to the girl and woman on Whatsapp and Apple iMessage, though it’s not immediately clear if he knew the victims personally.
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Hawkes is the first person in Britain to be charged under an unsolicited nudes provision of the new Online Safety Act, which was passed last year and took effect January 31. Hawkes was sentenced to 66 weeks in prison—roughly a year and three months, and was already on probation during the offenses for “exposure and sexual activity with a child under 16,” according to the BBC.
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The Online Safety Act has been controversial from the start for including a number of provisions that digital rights groups have opposed, including a new age verification requirement for consumers of online porn and new requirements that would force companies to abolish end-to-end encryption of messages. Apple and other tech companies signed a letter last year urging UK legislators to reconsider the law since end-to-end encryption is a vital tool for keeping messages safe among activists and journalists.
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But the elements of the new legislation that are largely uncontroversial involve things like the ban on unsolicited nudes, especially those being sent to kids. Essex Police stressed that people sometimes think they can hide behind the internet when committing various offenses, but clearly, that’s a very naive idea.
“Perpetrators may think that by offending online, they are less likely to be caught, however, that is not the case. ‘Cyber-flashing’ has a detrimental impact on victims, and we will continue to investigate all reports of this offense,” Detective Chief Inspector James Gray said in a statement published online.
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“My main message here is to the perpetrators, people who think it’s acceptable to send these unsolicited photos without permission. It’s not and I ask those who think it is acceptable to reflect on their behavior.”
U.S. laws about cyberflashing vary by state, though the potential penalties don’t include jail time. Virginia passed a law in 2022 that any unsolicited “intimate image” sent to another adult could bring a fine of $500. California also passed a law in 2022 dubbed the Forbid Lewd Activity and Sexual Harassment, or FLASH Act, that doesn’t label the activity a crime but does allow someone to sue for up to $30,000 in civil damages.
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