The problem is that the experience of the victims is made even worse thanks to complicated and expensive legal processes, should they decide to take action against the perpetrator.

That’s why Canada needs cyberbullying laws that curb unwanted sharing of sexual pictures without always requiring police investigations, said a Canadian law professor yesterday.

In the fall of 2013, Nova Scotia introduced a Cyber Safety Act – the first of its kind in Canada. But the legislation was struck down by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia near the end of last year when a judge ruled that it infringed on charter rights of freedom of expression.

Since the law was struck down, victims of online harassment have to turn to either complicated police investigations or expensive civil court suits, according to experts at yesterday’s meeting of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law in Halifax.

Dalhousie University law professor Wayne MacKay said that he’s eager for the province to follow up on a promise to amend and reintroduce its cyberbullying law and bring an investigative unit back into action, according to the Canadian Press.

The idea is that the new law would allow for informal requests to swiftly take down offensive words and images, as well as for civil court actions that would hold people accountable for distributing intimate images of another person.

In short, an informal resolution process means less time spent in court and reduced legal fees for the victims.

But it needs to happen soon before people take steps backwards into old habits that are never acceptable.

Roger Merrick, the director of public safety investigations with Nova Scotia’s Justice Department, said there is no firm timeline for the amended legislation, but a legal team is working to have it ready “as quickly as possible.”

According to Merrick, there were about 820 investigations by the CyberScan unit over the two years before the law was struck down, and over 100 cases were dealt with through informal resolutions.

There is currently no way to deal with cases that aren’t necessarily criminal, but are just as damaging to the victim.

Of particular concern to the experts is the growing trend of “revenge pornography,” where bitter parties post pictures of former lovers and significant others on the Internet. Sadly, it’s becoming the norm, as people act out in a fit of rage with a click of a button without considering the ramifications of their actions.

According to Merrick, there were 118 investigations of “domestic cases,” where the cyberbullying occurred between people who had been in a relationship for a period of time.

Perhaps the other provinces should take a page from Manitoba’s book.

The prairie province has an Intimate Image Protection Act that was introduced in January. As a result, Manitobans dealing with revenge porn canto contact the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to report cases of non-consensual sharing of sexual pictures.

The legislation provides action like having the images removed from social media and having investigators contact individuals to request they remove or delete the image. The act also allows victims to sue a person in civil court for distributing sexual pictures without consent.

Currently, we also have the federal anti-cyberbullying legislation that was introduced in late 2013 and became law in March 2015. It allows for criminal prosecutions when sexual pictures are shared without consent and when there was a reasonable expectation the images would be kept private.

Um, isn’t there always reasonable expectation that the images will be kept private?

Anyway, at a time when sexual harassment and consent matters are at the forefront of discussion, a cyberbullying reform couldn’t happen sooner.

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