B.C.'s Civil Resolution Tribunal has awarded a man $5,000 after his Grindr date posted a video of them having sex onto social media and OnlyFans more than two years ago.
The amount is the maximum damage claim available through the tribunal route of B.C.'s new Intimate Images Protection Act. The act, which rolled out at the end of January, gives people a path for recourse if an intimate image or video of them is shared without their consent.
In a ruling published on June 7, Tribunal Member Micah Carmody determined that while the subject of the case had agreed to being filmed, he had not consented to the video being posted online.
The B.C. man, identified as J.G. to protect his identity, had been visiting another province when he met up with the claim's respondent, R.C., after the two connected on the dating app Grindr.
R.C. filmed the two of them having sex in his bedroom and later sent the five minute video, which included their faces, to J.G. What J.G. didn't find out until much later was that R.C. had also posted the video to his OnlyFans and Just For Fans accounts, as well as clips to his multiple X or Twitter accounts.
OnlyFans and Just For Fans are content subscription sites most commonly used by sex workers who produce pornography.
While R.C. only has around 100 subscribers on those accounts, he has over 100,000 followers on one of his X accounts.
Carmody wrote in his decision that it is impossible to know how many times the video was viewed.
He also noted that while it was shot and uploaded in another province, the fact that J.G. found it online while residing in B.C. is proof that it was distributed here. This, Carmody said, gives the tribunal sufficient jurisdiction over the case.
R.C. didn't despute that J.G. should be compensated, but asked that it only be $2,000.
In deciding on the full $5,000, Carmody referred to intimate image court cases where victims were generally awarded between $45,000 and $85,000 for compensatory damages alone. He noted that most of those cases involved revenge porn, where the intimate images were weaponized by a former partner, so couldn't be directly compared to the case before him.
But, Carmody said, it is very likely that J.G. would have nonetheless been awarded far more than $5,000 had he gone through the provincial or supreme court system. Applicants may choose to go through the civil tribunal because it is far faster and simpler.
Given this, Carmody said he had no difficulty determining that J.G. should receive the full $5,000 award.
"The applicant says it is horrifying to know that a video showing him having sex, with his face shown, has been on the internet for over two years. He says although the video has now been removed, the violation continues to cause him mental distress in general and anxiety around sex and intimacy, specifically."
In addition to the damages, Carmody ordered that R.C. ensure the video is fully removed off of any sites, de-indexed from search engines and deleted from his personal devices.