intimate images

A series of steps would need to happen before a judge can restrict a person's movement because of fears they could commit a hate crime, federal Justice Minister Arif Virani said on Thursday as he defended a suite of tougher penalties to combat hate.

The Liberal government plans to create a new digital safety regulator to compel social-media platforms to take action against online harms and remove damaging content — including child sex-abuse material and intimate images shared without consent — under penalty of millions of dollars in fines.

The federal government is expected to introduce legislation against online harms today, which the Liberals have promised will tackle issues such as online child endangerment and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

A panicked 14-year-old from British Columbia and his family paid $1,500 to a company that claimed it would recover intimate images that were being used to extort him. It didn't.