Earlier this week, the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled that “upskirting”—the “practice” of taking a picture under a person’s skirt without their consent—is legal in the state due to a legislative loophole.
According to judges who weighed in on the decision, upskirting is does not hold up to the rubric that constitutes an invasion of privacy, due to the fact that the act isn’t technically criminalized in the state.
The precedent for the decision involves a 2013 in Houston County: a grocery store clerk named Brandon Lee Gary was indicted for taking a video up a customer’s skirt in the Publix chain store where he was employed. Gary, who was caught on camera, was seen taping her as she walked up and down the aisle past him. (In a nausea-inducing twist, the victim interacted with Gary after he had taken footage of her; at the time, she had asked him where she could find a particular item in the store. He then continued to film her after she walked away.)
Three years later, the Court of Appeals thew out the case on the grounds that laws pertaining to this type of lews behavior, which were written at a time that the means and technology to make upskirting a thing (i.e., smartphones) didn’t exist.