A St. George resident appeared at the St. George’s Magistrate Court on Tuesday, charged with Violation of Privacy under the Electronic Crimes Act.
Yurber Phillip, a 25-year old resident of Frequente is the first person to have been charged in violation of the Electronic Crimes Act which was passed in 2013. It is alleged that Phillip published nude photos of a person.
Section 10 (1) of the Electronic Crimes Act (Violation of Privacy) states that, “a person who, knowingly or without lawful excuse or justification, captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of a person without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person, commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand dollars or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three years; or to both.”
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Trevor Modeste said the Electronic Crimes Act is designed to protect the rights and privacy of individuals in this increasingly technological era.
He added that the provisions of the Electronic Crimes Act are clear. “I encourage persons to become familiar with these provisions. Ignorance of the law will not be accepted as an excuse. Violation of Privacy is one of the offences identified in the legislation and as such, citizens must refrain from violating the rights of other persons when they record and share images of others, specifically images that depict an individual’s private area. Private area, according to the law, refers to the genitals, whether naked or covered by undergarments, the pubic area, the buttocks or the female breast.”
