Two British Columbians who alleged the other shared intimate images of them have left the Civil Resolution Tribunal empty-handed after each sued the other for $5,000.
AQ claimed BV shared intimate images of her without her consent and claimed $5,000 in damages, tribunal vice-chair Eric Regehr said in a May 26 decision. BV asked Regehr to dismiss AQ’s claims.
BV also alleged AQ shared an intimate image of them without their consent and counterclaimed for $5,000.
Ultimately, he ruled each had already shared such images themselves and had no expectation of privacy.
AQ alleged BV shared two intimate images of her without her consent. BV admitted to sharing one image in a blog post.
“The more difficult question was about whether AQ had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the image when BV shared it,” Regehr said.
“This is because she had posted it publicly on a major social networking site,” he said. “AQ said this post was inadvertent, but I did not accept that evidence.”
Regehr found that post was intentional.
He said a reasonable person understands that by posting something broadly on the internet, such as in a publicly viewable social media post, they have functionally lost all control over it.
“They have offered it for the entire world to see,” he said. “This is an action inconsistent with reasonably expecting privacy in the image in the future.”
The tribunal found there was no evidence BV had shared the second image, and dismissed AQ’s claims.
In the counterclaim, BV provided evidence of several social media posts, including a photo of them nude.
“There is some evidence before me to suggest that the image was taken from a video that BV made public themselves,” Regehr said, noting BV had no reasonable expectation of privacy in it at the time it was shared.
He ruled BV had not proven AQ shared the image.
“I dismiss BV’s damages claim for damages,” Regehr wrote.
