Madras HC awaits SOP non-consensual images

The Madras high court is awaiting a standard operating procedure (SOP) from the Centre for victims to follow if videos and photos get uploaded online without their consent, to be taken down, Justice Anand Venkatesh said that he would pass a judicial order, after the SOP is submitted.

- Divya Chandrababu

The court was hearing the plea filed by a woman advocate stating that her former partner had released videos and photos of their intimate moments, filmed without her consent, on social media and pornographic sites.

The HC on Tuesday issued a direction to the Union minister of electronics and information technology to ensure that six video links where the videos and photos continue to resurface, is effectively blocked and “it shall also be ensured that it does not resurface again... This Court wants to await for the Standard Operating Procedure to be evolved by the concerned department and once the same is filed before this Court, the same can be acted upon and a judicial order can be passed”.

‘According to the court, the case “is a pathetic story of a young girl who was misled” during her college days by a person who in the guise of loving her, made false promises to marry her but “subjected her to repeated sexual exploitation which was filmed without her knowledge and was transmitted across the internet.”