If I was to HYPOTHETICALLY find child porn... (1 Viewer)

[Tires]

and I report it to the correct authorities, isn't there a possibility that the popo would think that I was intentionally searching for child porn and seize my computer and search all my records and whatnot?

 

[Will Shakespear]

if you accidentally see a teen model you think might be under 18, burn your HD immediately and never mention it to anyone

or you'll become an unperson

 

[Tires]

if you accidentally see a teen model you think might be under 18, burn your HD immediately and never mention it to anyone

or you'll become an unperson

Are you being serious?

 

[squeenie]

I once heard about a case where someone had a computer virus that downloaded all that illegal stuff onto their computer without them knowing. When the police caught them, the guy had to hire a computer forensics expert to prove that it was all because of a virus.

 

[Tires]

It's a little dodgy I think. I would love to hear a legal perspective on this.

 

[Rafy]

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s91h.html

Note in particular subsection (5).

 

[Garygaz]

I think the authorities are more concerned with hitting the suppliers and producers of it, rather than the person who has it saved on their computer. But yea, as Rafy said, as long as you made every effort to get rid of it, no problems

 

[Mothers]

But how exactly do you prove that you made 'every effort' to get rid of it? What if you watched it for like 5 minutes and you had a wank and then deleted? Surely having it only on your computer for 5 minutes proves that you took every effort to get rid of it? Right?


WRONG.

 

[incentivation]

I would assume that if you viewed the material (i.e. downloaded it), then immediately clicked on back etc, it could fall into that category. If you viewed it, then saved it to your harddrive, deleting it some time later, you'd be hard pressed to show that you took reasonable steps to get rid of it.

 

[Mothers]

I would assume that if you viewed the material (i.e. downloaded it), then immediately clicked on back etc, it could fall into that category. If you viewed it, then saved it to your harddrive, deleting it some time later, you'd be hard pressed to show that you took reasonable steps to get rid of it.

But if the child porn were an attachment in an email titled 'wedding photos', and you downloaded it, how would you then explain yourself?

Also, is there a time limit on how long you can have it on your computer before it is deemed illegal?

 

[Strawbaby]

I would have thought the whole thing would be a question of reasonableness, of degree etc. You can't legislate for every possible way of finding child pornography and impose specific time limits on it, your reaction would just have to be assessed in light of the circumstances.

 

[incentivation]

But if the child porn were an attachment in an email titled 'wedding photos', and you downloaded it, how would you then explain yourself?

Also, is there a time limit on how long you can have it on your computer before it is deemed illegal?

Common sense would surely prevail.

I'm quite sure you would only have to prove on the balance of probabilities that you took all reasonable steps to get rid of it. I mean, if you have 10 or even 200 images from an attachment, the court is likely to take that into account.

In most cases, the offender has thousands of pictures from different sources which indicates a pattern of behaviour. In those circumstances it would be very difficult to prove that it was incidental.

As strawbaby said, it would be considered on the whole of the circumstances.

 

[Rorix]

But if the child porn were an attachment in an email titled 'wedding photos', and you downloaded it, how would you then explain yourself?

Honest and reasonable mistake would be a defence I would think, although not going to the trouble of looking up the law on it to answer a post