Inquiry Into Options for Addressing the Issue of Sexting by Minors
Submission Date: 6 August 2013
The Law Council of Australia provided a submission to the Senate Select Committee on Cyber-Safety (the Committee) as part of its inquiry into options for addressing the issue of sexting by minors (the inquiry).
The practice of sexting has arisen from the increasing use of mobile phones and social media, particularly by young people, and involves the creation and sharing of images of a sexual nature by and between some users of this technology.1 It has attracted the attention of the media, policy makers and academics in recent years.
The issue of policy responses to sexting has been the subject of a number of inquiries recently. For example, the Victorian Parliament’s Law Reform Committee released the report of its inquiry into sexting in May 2013,2 and the National Children’s and Youth Law Centre in conjunction with NSW Legal Aid and the University of NSW released a report titled ‘New Voices / New Laws’ which examined peer-to-peer sexting and cyber-bullying in November 2012.3 The issue was also discussed by the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety in its 2011 report of its inquiry into cyber-safety titled, ‘High-Wire Act: Cyber-Safety and the Young.’4
The Law Council notes that researchers from the Sydney Institute of Criminology, University of NSW, and University of Western Sydney are also currently conducting a study into the sexting habits of young people aged between 13 and 18 years.5 The aim of this research is to enhance understanding about the sexting practices and perceptions of young Australians in an effort to influence policy and inform public debate on this issue.
Read the full submission below.
1 See T. Crofts and M. Lee, ‘Sexting, Children and Child Pornography’, Sydney Law Review, March 2013, Vol. 35(1), p.85. Available from http://sydney.edu.au/law/slr/slr_35/slr35_1/04_Crofts_Lee.pdf. See also M. Lee, T. Crofts, M. Salter, S. Milivojevic, and A. McGovern, ‘Let’s Get Sexting: Risk, Power, Sex and Criminalisation in the Moral Domain,’ International Journal for Crime and Justice, 2013, Volume 2( 1), p.39; S. Walker, L. Sanci and M. Temple-Smith, ‘Sexting and young people’, Youth Studies Australia, 2011, Vol. 30(4), p.8.
2 See Parliament of Victoria, Law Reform Committee Report, Inquiry into Sexting, Parliamentary Paper No. 230, May 2013, available from http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/lawreform/article/944 (Law Reform Committee Report)
3 See National Children’s and Youth Law Centre, Law New Voices/ New Laws, November 2012, available from http://www.lawstuff.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/15030/New-Voices-Law-Reform-Report.pdf (New Voices/New Laws Report)
4 Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety, High Wire Act: Cyber-Safety and the Young, June 2011, available from http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=jscc/re port.htm (High-Wire Act Report).
Last Updated on 30/04/2025
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