The mother of Amanda Todd, a teenage girl who was a victim of online extortion in Canada and died by suicide at age 15, has expressed her emotions upon hearing about British Columbia’s plan to implement legal changes that will protect those whose intimate photos are shared without their consent. Carol Todd sees this legislation as a significant step in protecting other young people from being victimized in the same way her daughter was. The proposed bill presented by Attorney General Niki Sharma aims to create legal rights and remedies that will prevent the distribution of intimate images and enable the injured person to seek compensation for their harms. Todd believes her daughter would be proud of this progress and that it reflects Amanda’s dream of helping kids. The legislation extends to intimate images, near-nude photos, videos, live streams, and digitally altered images, including deep fakes. Offenders must delete or destroy images, and social media platforms must remove them and scrub them from search engines. Sharma has emphasized that circulating or threatening to spread intimate images is sexualized violence that can have devastating impacts. The Civil Resolution Tribunal, part of B.C.’s justice system, will provide immediate self-help tools, mental health supports, and essential information on people’s rights, once the portal is expanded. If the bill is passed, it will be retroactive, even for wrongful conduct happening before the legislation’s enactment. As police issue cautions to parents and young people about the increase in online sextortion of youth and Cybertip reports an average of 70 youth sextortion cases every week, Todd speaks of how they missed the mark when Amanda died, thinking it was a one-off incident. She called for legal changes to protect youth, including the inclusion of the term “sextortion” in the Criminal Code. Todd expresses her disbelief that this change in B.C.’s law can happen a decade after her daughter’s death, and she hopes it can inspire other regions to follow suit.
BC’s new law targets sharing of unauthorized explicit photos.
