Sharing obscene selfies can land you in jail

People who take obscene selfies — photographs one takes of oneself — and share them with others will be liable to legal action, the Criminal Investigations Department ( CID) has warned.

The warning came after a ser- ies of complaints from people, including schoolchildren, that some of the selfies they had shared with others had been posted on various websites and on social media.

A senior police officer attached to the CID’s cybercrime division told the Sunday Times that one of the best ways to deal with this abuse was to take action not only against those who post other people’s selfies on websites and social media but also against those who share their selfies with others.

He said there was provision in the law to take legal action against such persons and if anyone was found guilty, he could face a six- month jail term or a fine.

The officer said in one of the complaints made to the cybercrime division, a schoolgirl had said her selfies had been uploaded to Facebook by her boyfriend. Police arrested the boyfriend while he was uploading obscene pictures of girls to a Facebook page.

An inspection of the laptop had revealed that he had obscene pictures of five other girls and had been sharing some 1,000 pictures among a selected group of social media friends.

The officer said that they investigated 21 cases last year and instituted legal action. This year, the division had probed 20 complaints so far and most of them related to young women sharing nude or semi- nude selfies with boyfriends.

He said they would carry out an awareness campaign in schools to explain the pitfalls in taking obscene selfies and sharing or transmitting them.