Criminalising Online Sexual Abuse in Ireland : A Further Step Towards Ensuring the Protection of Human Rights
The publication of online sexual imagery without consent raises several human rights issues. Most notably, it threatens the right to private life and the right to the protection of one’s image under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In Von Hannover v Germany (no. 2) the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held: “[A] person’s image constitutes one of the chief attributes of his or her personality, as it reveals the person’s unique characteristics and distinguishes the person from his or her peers. The right to the protection of one’s image is thus one of the essential components of personal development. It mainly presupposes the individual’s right to control the use of that image, including the right to refuse publication thereof…” In recent years, technological advancements have significantly increased the distribution of sexual imagery online. Online pornography has also become an easy vector to share and distribute sexual c...
