You go through a really bad break up with an ex or just don’t like a person and have on your cellphone some really private intimate images about the person that you want to use as revenge against them to send to many other people on Whats App.

IS THIS YOU? Be careful before you send an intimate image of someone to another person without their permission as this now can land you in jail.

Finally a new law was signed into the Cyber crimes Act by our President recently which now makes it an official crime in South Africa to send harmful messages on social media which includes platforms such as Whats App.

The harmful messages which the Act refers to includes messages which:

1. Incited damage to property or violence;
2. Threaten people with damage to property or violence; and
3. Unlawfully contain an intimate image

This means that sending / sharing an intimate image of someone without their permission can have severe consequences on you. According the Act, an intimate image can be a real or simulated image which shows a person as being nude. If the person is not identifiable, it still constitutes a crime if a person is being identified in the text.

If you are caught contravening the provisions of this Act you may be convicted of such an offence and sentenced with a hefty fine or imprisonment for up to 15 years.

This is an extremely harsh sentence for sending an image of someone else, so it might be wise to delete all images, videos or messages that you are keeping on your cellphone of someone else as this can do you more damage than good.