| Summary: | This thesis examines the balance between protections of privacy and free expression in online environments, specifically, the issue of 'sexual privacy' and the unauthorised sharing of intimate or sexual material online. The growth of the Internet has consequences for the human rights obligations of states bound by the European Convention on Human Rights to protect privacy online. Evidence shows that violations of sexual privacy, and other forms of online abuse, are highly gendered - most victims are female and most perpetrators are male. Victims report that criminal justice systems are ineffective handling their cases. Yet, poor responses from police and prosecutors are incompatible with the human rights obligations of the state. To examine the question of sexual privacy, the thesis uses four modes to explore the current shape of the internet and the challenges of regulation - normative shifts in protections of privacy online, technical architectures, the role of markets, and the limitations of the law to safeguard sexual privacy online. The methodology, which reflects the legal, societal, and technical backdrop of the research, employs a doctrinal legal analysis of the layered rules governing the framework for online expression and privacy. A case study from Iceland builds on domestic and international law together with an analysis of case law from 2008 to 2019. Empirical research comes from elite interviews with the Icelandic police, prosecutors, Europol and NGOs that work in the field of online abuse. The thesis proposes a victim-centric legal redress, based in human rights, for violations of sexual privacy that frames violations of sexual privacy as sexual offences. Measures developed from this doctoral research are already being implemented by the Icelandic government, so the thesis includes research strategies to track effective application of the legislation by police, victim support and technology platforms.
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