Sexting

What is Sexting?

Sexting is when someone sends explicit images of themselves to someone else. This can be online or using their phone. We found out that sending something this way can be dangerous as once it is on your phone and sent it is no longer yours and anything can happen to it.

The law on sexting is that if you are under 18 and you have an image of yourself or send it to someone then you and that person are in possession of an indecent image. This means that even if it is of yourself you are still in possession of an indecent image of a child. This is also known as child pornography and is illegal.

Sending online images can have serious consequences for the sender and receiver. In our discussion we found came up with different scenarios based on the law. For example, if one of us was aged 15 had an indecent image on our phone of our friend of the same age, then both of us would be have an indecent image of a child.

If this image was sent to one of our youth workers, even as a joke, then our youth worker could go to prison for having an indecent image of a child and could even be registered as a sex offender, which means they would never be a youth worker again.

Both scenarios could lead to a caution under the Sexual Offences Act, as well as the Protection of Children Act because the images would be classed as child pornography.

At worse, this could lead to up to 10 years in prison, a £5000 fine or both!

If someone sends a photo of themselves to someone else when they are in relationship but they split up and that person shares it with others without permission this also illegal.