SELECTED CASE LAW
ALBERTA:
[2006] AJ No 965 is an early cyber-stalking and “revenge porn” case. Mr. B used a keylogger to access his former girlfriend’s passwords, computer contents, and intimate images. As the Court writes, “[B] disrupted her life with a specific plan of making her pay. It was a mean act. It’s devastating…”[1]
The Court contrasts B’s “extreme” cyber-stalking with “a more traditional form of harassment by phone calls, stalking, leaving things with full malice of forethought, that a person protects themselves by […] changing address, phone number, even hiring security people.” While, as the Court notes, those cases involve fear, “a measure of some relief of the fear can be possible, although not much.”[2] With online attacks, however, the Court “wonders where the end of the road is in our society today.”[3]
The Court calls cyber-stalking “a serious concern for the community”[4] and ultimately sentences B to 20-months imprisonment. B’s sentencing appeal was dismissed.[5] With regard to the nonconsensual disclosure of the victim’s intimate photos, the Court states, “As a trial judge and a male I will say to [the victim], it happened. Try not to be embarrassed by it. One is better off if one can accept it in that fashion. This man is the abuser. You are not. And acting as a mature person in an intimate relationship is hardly anything to criticize of any human being in my opinion.”[6]
[1] [2006] AJ No 965 at para 18.
[2] [2006] AJ No 965 at para 18.
[3] [2006] AJ No 965 at para 18.
[4] [2006] AJ No 965 at para 1.
[5] 2006 ABCA 295.
[6] [2006] AJ No 965 at para 26.
Criminal Offence(s): Criminal Harassment