Intimate Images Protection Act Brought Into Force This Week

The final steps for BC’s innovative Intimate Images Protection Act (“IIPA”) are now complete and the law is set to fully come into force.

On December 18, 2023 Order in Council 725 was published noting that the IIPA will come into force on January 29, 2024.

In short this now means that anybody who has had their intimate images distributed without their consent in British Columbia, even if they have previously given consent and later revoked it, now have a new set of legal remedies.

They can apply to various ‘decision makers’ including the online Civil Resolution Tribunal for a takedown order.  They can further sue for non-pecuniary, aggravated and even punitive damages to those who distribute the images without their consent.  Distributors can include search engines like Google and other powerful social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and X. Those that do so can face serios administrative penalties of up to $100,000 for a failure to comply with a take-down order or de-indexing order under the Act.

As discussed earlier this month the legislation is so broad it even covers deep fakes (like the ones Taylor Swift was targeted with this week).

I discussed this earlier this week on Chek News.  You can click here to read our archived posts and learn more.

If you need legal help with an IIPA claim you can contact us confidentially here.