The South Korean supreme court today reversed a lower court ruling that had established that posting selfie nude photos without the subject’s consent qualified as a sex offense. It may qualify as revenge porn, but it no longer qualifies as a sex offense according to Korean law.
Revenge porn is defined as “the sharing of private, sexual materials, either photos or videos, of another person without their consent and with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress.”
In the case in question, 50-year-old Mr. Seo distributed pictures of his ex-girlfriend on social media, even posting the nude photos as a comment to his ex’s daughter’s social media account. The lower court had convicted him under the special sex offense law relating to using a camera (성폭력 범죄 처벌에 관한 특례법상, 카메라 등 이용 촬영죄, 제14조 1항) and sentenced him to 8 months in prison.
The Supreme Court reversed the ruling because the woman had taken the pictures herself. As he had not personally used a camera to obtain the photos, the law did not apply, they ruled. Seo can still be prosecuted for distribution of illicit materials (porn itself is illegal in Korea), but won’t be any penalty specifically for distributing the pictures without the subject’s consent.