The Government has announced that it intends to criminalise cyber flashing. It is the digital version of a trench-coat flasher in the park. But is the current proposed legislation actually up to doing the job it is tasked with? I’m not so sure.

Cyber flashing will be included as a specific offence in the upcoming Online Safety Bill, the government has announced. This means that those who send unsolicited dick pics could face up to two years in prison. It’s taken a long time for us to get this far.

You’re standing on a busy train when your phone buzzes: someone’s trying to AirDrop you some pictures. Photos of an erect penis, it turns out when you check the thumbnails.

As our lives moved online in lockdown, cases of cyber flashing have increased. Now as we wait for the government to act on law reform, Sophie Gallagher looks at the dangers of allowing this harassment to boom

On Tuesday 19 March, Sophie Meehan was heading home from a night out in London with her dad, Patrick. The pair had been to see the musical Hamilton – catching a tube to St Pancras after the show finished, to wait for the 11pm fast train back home to Canterbury.

The update includes changes to the AirDrop file-sharing function – changes that have left some sexual harassment experts and victims with concerns over women’s safety.

When John* was in his early twenties he used to sit alone in his room, on his bed, and send women unsolicited dick pics over the internet.

The first time Natasha Harpley’s Facebook Messenger app pinged with a notification from the stranger was in November last year.

The true extent of the number of people falling victim to a disturbing trend of ‘cyber-flashing’ in public places in the UK could be going unreported, because women are not alerting the crime to authorities.

If you exposed yourself to someone on the street, you’d be arrested for flashing. So why are people so comfortable with doing it online? HuffPost UK reporter Sophie Gallagher explains why we should care about cyberflashing.

In an exclusive interview with HuffPost UK, Conservative MP Maria Miller and Labour MP Jess Phillips said the true extent of abuse such as cyber flashing is going unrecorded.

A couple who were sent unsolicited dick pics by a fellow passenger on a British Airways plane, as they sat with their six-year-old daughter waiting for take-off, have criticised the airline’s response.

A woman who was sent multiple unsolicited pictures of a man’s genitals while travelling on the Tube, claims she had to explain smartphone technology to a British Transport Police officer when she tried to report the incident.

Isabella Smith had only been a student at the University of Birmingham for a couple of weeks when she received unsolicited ‘dick pics’ on her iPhone.

Jenny Briggs was cyber flashed on a packed rush hour train in central London while using the on-board WiFi to try and do some work. The 27-year-old PR from Bristol says she was writing a press release when the explicit images landed on her screen leaving her completely “mortified”.

Caitlin* switches her phone to aeroplane mode and places it on the small table between us. She isn’t doing it to be polite. This is what she’s done for the last three months when in a public place. “It’s safer that way,” she explains, glancing nervously over her shoulder at a couple of male builders entering the cafe.