Producing and/or Distributing Intimate Images of a Person without its Consent

Abstract

Modern times have created different types of new crimes unknowable to the criminal law doctrine before. One of these new crimes is unlawful distribution of intimate images of person in public without its consent, including distribution in Internet. In the world practice this action usually named as “nonconsensual porn”. Nowadays this type of unlawful actions is actively studied in foreign law systems, some of these recently criminalized it; however in the Russian law “nonconsensual porn” is not popular theme for researching in doctrine and also in practice, although the act itself exists. Dispositions of a number of articles of Chapters 19 and 25 of Special part of the Criminal Code of Russian Federation only partially cover the act mentioned; therefore, the need to change the law is already brewing due to the need of modernization of criminal legislation in connection with various ways of committing such a crime. Focusing on the ways of committing the researched act, authors identify and explore three ways of creating “nonconsensual porn”: its production by secret shooting, the production of intimate images of a person with the consent of the person himself and the production of “nonconsensual porn” by using computer technologies. Authors also made an attempt to differentiate the studied act with the already existing crimes of the Special Part of the Criminal Code (Articles 128.1, 137, 242, etc.). The subject of that research is “nonconsensual porn” as an unlawful act. The aim of the research is creating the complex model of offence of “nonconsensual porn” in Russian criminal law system and explanation of necessity of criminalization this act as an independent crime. The need of protection of people’s rights from “nonconsensual porn” especially by criminal law because of the danger of that act, differentiation “nonconsensual porn” from other crimes and need of criminalization of that act in the Russian criminal law is proving by authors. Present research provides significant thesis for developing of study of criminal law and formulate drafts in the Russian Criminal Code, what gives the practical meaning to the work.