Non-Consensual Intimate Image Sharing on the Internet: Regulating Betrayal in Jamaica and India

Digital communication technologies transform the everyday practices of communication in intimate relationships, enabling benign as well as abusive patterns of communication over online channels. Non-consensual dissemination of intimate images (NCII), commonly referred to as revenge porn, is one of the abusive practices that is enacted in online environments within the context of intimate relationships. NCII has negative impacts on the everyday lives of victims with implications for victims’ individual privacy, reputation, and sexual autonomy. With sexting becoming a normalized, everyday practice in romantic relationships, more persons are engaging in practices that will make them susceptible to NCII. In addition, NCII is a practice that disproportionately affects women and other vulnerable groups, and so it impacts the landscape of societal inequality. This closer examination of NCII and its regulation enables the development of solutions to a global policy problem that is increasingly affecting global citizens’ everyday lives and is relevant to equality, freedom, and individual rights.