Canadian woman who took 'nearly nude' photos at work can’t sue ex who sent them to her bosses: ruling

A B.C. civil tribunal has ruled that a woman can’t sue her ex-boyfriend for distributing intimate images to her employer because it was in the “public’s interest” for him to do so, since many of the photos and videos were captured while she was at work. One of which, the Civil Resolution Tribunal’s Megan Stewart noted in a decision published Wednesday , was taken at the undisclosed employer’s “front counter.” With Stewart also ordering a publication ban under the B.C. Intimate Images Protection Act (IIPA), the applicant and respondent are identified as MR and SS, respectively. The woman’s employer is also withheld. According to the decision, while involved with SS, MR sent “photos and videos of herself exposing different private parts of her body, and engaging in sexual acts” at her place of work during work hours. After the relationship ended, he forwarded the content to her bosses to notify them of her “workplace misconduct.” MR, who was seeking up $5,000 in damages under the IIPA, argued that SS’s true motive was to damage her reputation and embarrass her. Stewart dismissed the claim, ruling the content shared with MR’s employer didn’t fully meet the criteria of “intimate” under the law. While the photos and video were intimate in that they “showed the applicant engaged in a sexual act, nearly nude, or exposing her genitals or breasts,” that they were captured “in parts of the office that were accessible to the public or other employees” essentially nullified their intimacy, Stewart determined. Her “reasonable expectation” that SS wouldn’t expose the images online or send them to her family didn’t extend to her place of work. “In particular, I found a person who takes otherwise intimate recordings of themselves at work does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in those images to the extent they are shared with their employer for the purpose of investigating alleged misconduct, whatever the sharer’s motives,” Stewart wrote. But MR’s claim would have been dismissed even had she proven the images were intimate, Stewart ruled. The IIPA sets out that someone can’t be found liable for sharing such images if it “was in the public interest and did not extend beyond what was in the public interest.” Stewart decided it was, and cited her unpublished intimate image protection order decision, noting that “the locations where the images were taken were not always secure and private, including one photo that was undisputedly taken while the applicant was at the ‘front counter.’ “I find even on a strict interpretation of what is in ‘the public interest,’ these specific circumstances are captured.”

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