English Law Commission Scoping Report on Protecting Victims from Online Abuse

The Law Commission of England and Wales has published a scoping report on the protection of victims from online and social media-based abuse:

"We were asked to assess whether the current criminal law achieved parity of treatment between online and offline offending. For the most part, we have concluded that abusive online communications are, at least theoretically, criminalised to the same or even a greater degree than equivalent offline offending. However, we consider there is considerable scope for reform:

• Many of the applicable offences do not adequately reflect the nature of some of the offending behaviour in the online environment, and the degree of harm it can cause.
• Practical and cultural barriers mean that not all harmful online conduct is pursued in terms of criminal law enforcement to the same extent that it might be in an offline context.
• More generally, criminal offences could be improved so they are clearer and more effectively target serious harm and criminality.
• The large number of overlapping offences can cause confusion.
• Ambiguous terms such as 'gross offensiveness' 'obscenity' and 'indecency' don’t provide the required clarity for prosecutors.

Reforms would help to reduce and tackle, not only online abuse and offence generally but also:

• 'Pile on' harassment, where online harassment is coordinated against an individual. The Report notes that “in practice, it appears that the criminal law is having little effect in punishing and deterring certain forms of group abuse”.
• The most serious privacy breaches – for example the Report highlights concerns about the laws around sharing of private sexual images. It also questions whether the law is adequate to deal with victims who find their personal information e.g. about their health or sexual history, widely spread online."

As part of its report, the Commission examined laws governing abusive and offensive communication in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Germany and New Zealand.