1/ Seems to be lots of confusion about what Garda Commissioner said yesterday re the nude/intimate images shared online last week. He said no criminal investigation was underway. That has disappointed & shocked many people especially since incident got so much attention last week

2/ It's important to note the Garda *did* launch an investigation into this last week when the images were shared and were subject to so much comment. Below is the Garda release from last week announcing the investigation and appealing for victims to come forward

3/ Garda Commissioner Drew Harris commented on this issue yesterday at a meeting of the Policing Authority when asked by authority member Vicky Conway if he could provide the “victims” of “image-based sexual abuse” with an update on the criminal investigations under way.

4/ He said there was now no crime under investigation and that:
Firstly, no victims had come forward.
Secondly, despite claims last week, none of the images featured children/child sexual abuse.
Thirdly, the site the images were shared on is not in Ireland.

5/ If any of the images were of children, no victim would be required to come forward to make a statement. A criminal investigation would begin without a victim statement.
However, in order to begin an investigation into the images of women, a victim statement would be required.

6/ A statement from women would be needed to explain to guards precisely how/where the images were taken and initially posted/shared and then how someone took up the images and shared them without consent. Gardai would need that info directly from women in the images.

7/ If the images were completely private or if they were revenge porn, it is possible they could (under current laws) be investigated as coercive control or harassment (it's possible). Revenge porn legislation is being introduced which will specifically make revenge porn a crime.

8/ Having spoken to guards, they say if consent was present at *any* stage when any of these images was shared in a public forum (site, message boards, social media etc) then it is not a crime for someone to gather up lots of those images, put them in a folder and share them on.

9/ So according to guards; if someone sells nude/intimate imagery on Only Fans or if they post images on a Facebook/Instagram account with a tiny number of followers or which is private and the images were only intended for one person; a creep who harvests lots of them...

10/.... into a folder with other images - even thousands of images - no crime is committed. Once the initial sharing/posting of the image was done by the person in the image then any wider sharing of that image than was intended by the person in the photos is *not* a crime....

11/ In short, Garda sources say once a person initially shares/posts intimate photos of themselves they have no control under law over anyone who would be obnoxious enough to take that image and then blast it all over the internet to a much bigger audience than initially intended

12/ So, according to guards I've spoken to, once the person in an image shares it at the outset, what happens to the image after that is out of that person's hands and oversharing that image by a third party is not a crime. It may be lowest of the low, but it's not a crime.

13/ Just to add - The Garda commissioner also urged anyone who believes they were victimised by those images being shared last week to come forward and contact gardai. He said specialist sexual crime investigators were available to investigate any allegations made by victims.