Sexual harassment via the Internet does not require physical contact

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The Italian Supreme Court held that the crime of sexual harassment can be caused by the conduct performed by a person which had contacted two minors on MSN forcing them to send him some naked pictures of them through threats of disclosing to the public further images of them that he held.

According to the court, the crime could be triggered despite of the distance between the victims and the defendant due to the usage of the Internet as means through which the threats had been performed and the lack of any physical contact. Indeed, the court stressed that the electronic means used by the defendant were considerably dangerous since “the communications via chat or social networks make particularly easy to approach people with whom a direct contact would have been otherwise more complicated“. In fact, a person can be reached through a mere search or through the means offered by platforms to put their users into contact.

In the case under issue, the court reviewed the conversations identifying intimidating discussions between the victims and the defendant where the latter was threatening to disclosed the material on them that he held if the minors were not performing the requested activities and providing the requested images/videos. The position of the court was that the crime occurs also in the case of psychological harassment which had taken place in such case.

This is a very interesting decision that shows how courts are adapting their interpretation of law provisions to technological developments and new means of communication, bearing in mind that Italian criminal law prohibits to rely on the principle of analogy in criminal proceeding.

What is your view on the above? Feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, to discuss. Also follow me on Twitter and become one of my friends on LinkedIn.

Image courtesy of Flikr by M.A. Cabrera Luengo

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