Ms Noeline Blackwell:

Yes. We are very grateful to the Chairman and the committee for the invitation to speak on the topic of online harassment, harmful communications and related offences. I am here with my colleague, Ms Shirley Scott. We have already made a submission to the committee answering the various questions it raised.

Our interest in this topic arises from the range of services we offer. We take more than 270 calls each week on the national 24-hour helpline we run. We provide face-to-face therapy to nearly 600 people and training to approximately 2,000 people per year, including those working on the front line with victims and survivors of sexual violence and those working with children and young people. Our personnel accompany victims and survivors to the sexual assault treatment unit at the Rotunda Hospital, to Garda stations and to court.

In our work we see the often lifelong consequences of the trauma and harm caused by sexual violence of all kinds, which is often compounded for victims and survivors as a result of technology and harmful communications that are used to harass and humiliate. In our BodyRight programme, developed to raise awareness of sexual violence among young people and to assist in its prevention, we have recently had to introduce additional modules to address what their teachers and guidance counsellors found as the serious issues of sexting and sextortion, and we are developing a module on pornography. As everybody has said, while the sharing of images might appear harmless to some people, particularly young people, sexting and other forms of image sharing can have serious social and legal consequences, and the importance of young people knowing about those consequences cannot be overestimated.

We hear all the time from callers and clients of how a single image uploaded to the Internet without consent can often have devastating consequences for the person whose image is uploaded.

We also prefer the term preferred by the committee of "non-consensual sharing of sexual images". This type of abuse, the sharing of images online without consent, is often done by partners and ex-partners and is one of the deepest betrayals of trust by a partner or ex-partner, who is using technology and the Internet to cause harm. We need legislation to better protect everyone together with a greater understanding of the harmful and insidious nature of such abuse.

Such forms of non-consensual sharing of intimate images are recognised as specific offences in other jurisdictions. We have expanded on this in our written submission. In brief, many jurisdictions have laws in place to protect people from online sexual violence. The offences introduced in Australia, New Zealand, England and Wales targeting online harassment and harmful communications focus on both the behaviour and the impact of the behaviour, which is an approach we recommend.

We also recommend that harmful content be defined as any content that seriously interferes with the peace and privacy of the other person or which causes alarm, distress or harm to him or her. Freedom of expression, while an important right, is not an absolute one and must be balanced against the impact of the online harmful communication and privacy rights. Our criminal legislation on the issue is at present entirely inadequate to address issues of harassment, stalking, voyeurism or other harmful online behaviour and does not protect the rights of those who are victims of such behaviour. If the definition of harmful content were broadened, there would be a more balanced approach that would not impose undue restrictions on the right of freedom of expression, which only requires the removal of content where the content is injurious to the victim. We do not have legislation creating any statutory responsibility for Internet service providers to monitor effectively content being posted on their websites.

In our written submission to the committee we have recommended a flexible approach whereby the legislation would be supported by the capacity of a digital safety commissioner to regulate content within the main mandate of the legislation. The commissioner would have mandatory powers to implement legislation and capacity to build codes of practice and to issue notices or other takedown sanctions if the need arose. Based on the data and research of that office, rules could be adjusted to ensure that the legislation remains effective and current. We also believe there would be a substantial increase in safety, a reduction in crime and much more responsibility online if every account had a verified author. This is not the current model for online companies anywhere but it would be a substantial safeguard against criminal behaviour and activity, such as that which happens on online dating sites, defamation, which happens with trolls and fake accounts across social media, and irresponsible posting. Companies would be responsible for verifying. Posters and authors would be responsible for their defamation or their criminal activity and harmful communications. This should be universal but could at least be Ireland and Europe-wide.