According to Victorian Attorney General Rob Hulls, there is no consistent national law banning the publication of “up-skirt” and “down-blouse” photos taken without the subject’s permission.
"Most jurisdictions believe they have legislation that may cover [these types of] incidences, but that's not clear," Hull said. "I'll be asking for a national approach to ensure that that type of inappropriate behavior is certainly covered by laws right across the country."
While Australia already bans the publication of pornographic material hosted on servers based in the country, calls for a content-specific ban trouble Peter Coroneos of the Internet Industry Association, who praised the concept behind the proposal, but was quick to warn that such a law might ultimately be ineffective.
"We've seen this in pornography debate that's been alive since about 1998, but what happened as a consequence of those policies was that any pornographic material that was remaining in Australia prior to the commencement of the law in 2000, since moved off-shore," Coroneos said.
Calls for banning “up-skirt” and “down-blouse” content began in 2003 when pictures of boys from a Melbourne school turned up on the Internet without their permission.
"I hate to say it, but to the extent that the site is hosted offshore I'm afraid at this stage there's very little that can be done," Coroneos said.
David Vaile of the Australian Privacy Foundation lauded the proposal, but cautioned against the government going too far.
“In some cases, governments overreact when existing laws can actually go a long way to protecting certain rights,” Vaile said. “But if it has to be a specific one, I think it's very important to not bring the whole idea of protection of privacy into disrepute by bringing in some sort of knee-jerk, blanket prohibition that turns out to be unworkable.”