Saskatchewan Introduces New Measures To Address Non-Consensual Sharing Of Intimate Images

On November 15th, the Saskatchewan government introduced legislation to expand the legal actions people can take to stop the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. The Privacy (Intimate images -Additional Remedies) Amendment Act, 2021, builds on existing privacy legislation to provide victims of the non-consensual sharing of intimate images with the power to reclaim their images and have them removed from the internet.

The new amendments extend the definition of protected intimate images to digitally altered copies as well as original recordings. The legislation also allows an individual to take legal action if someone has threatened to distribute intimate images of them.

Additionally, the Act authorizes the court to order a defendant to return to the victim any copies of visual recording and to make every reasonable effort to ensure they are unavailable to others. The court may also order internet intermediaries to make every reasonable effort to remove or de-index all visual recordings of the victim. These court orders are intended to make it easier for victims to successfully request that online platforms remove their images, something that in many past instances has been incredibly challenging. These changes add to the provisions about the non-consensual distribution of intimate images adopted by the province in 2018, and mirror those included in the recently introduced Protection from Human Trafficking Act.