A court of Appeal juge, Justice Sir Dennis Dominic Adjei has warned that any person found culpable of taking sexual information of children and others, is liable to a maximum of 10 years imprisonment.

He said there are limitations placed on access to pornographic images of a child or any other person and has been criminalised unlike secret recordings of other matters or conduct which have not been criminalised and can be published despite their consequences.

His Lordship Sir Adjei said this while delivering a public lecture on “The parameters and the impact of right to information in Ghana” in Accra on Thursday.

According to him, the law is that a person who takes or permits to be taken an indecent image or photograph of a child, or procures same for the purposes of publication of whatever kind including storing it on a computer commits an offence and shall be liable upon conviction to be sentenced to a minimum of five years and maximum of ten years.

“A person who uses a computer on-line service, internet service, a local bulletin board service, or any electronic equipment capable of storing or transmitting information which deals with a child including luring, soliciting, seducing, grooming, enticing; or attempt or aid and abet any of the above acts for purposes of sexual abuse ; or any information that will disclose the identity of a child in connection with sexual activities including the production child’s telephone number, electronic mail address physical description or picture (cyber stalking of a child) commits an offence and upon conviction shall be liable to a term of not less than five years and not more than fifteen years.

“Sexual extortion has been criminalised and a person who threatens to distribute matters concerning private image or moving images of other person or a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct for whatever purposes, commits an offence and upon conviction shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of not less than ten years and more than twenty- five years,” he said.

He further cautioned that it is also an offence for a person to intentionally distribute or cause another person to distribute intimate images or prohibited visual recordings of another person without the consent of that person where there was a reasonable expectation of privacy at the time of the creation of the image or visual recording commits an offence and upon conviction shall be liable to a minimum sentence of one year and not more than three years.