With technology advancing by the day, more and more people are using smartphones to communicate with one another. For this reason, sexting is growing in popularity as well.
While some people never take part in this behavior, others continue to do so on a regular basis. Here is what you need to know: At this time, there are very few criminal laws directly addressing sexting. In other words, this is not illegal.
However, there is something else you need to consider: You need to be careful of the type of information that is communicated through the transmission of images and text via mobile devices.
For example, two consenting adults may have the right to sext one another as often as they want. But if one party is an adult and the other is a minor, this could lead to criminal charges. For instance, sexting with a minor could break some type of child pornography law. And as you may know, these laws are taken seriously by law enforcement agencies throughout the country.
There are times when a person thinks that they are sexting within the legal limits of the law, but have some uncertainty regarding whether or not they should be doing this. Furthermore, it is not out of the question for police to wrongfully charge somebody with a sexting related crime.
Since laws on sexting are relatively non-existent, there is a lot of gray area associated with crimes involving sexually charged information transmitted from one device to another. Anybody who is charged with a sex crime should understand which law they broke and which defense strategy is best.
Source: FindLaw, “Sexting,” accessed Oct. 08, 2015
