Nude photo-sharing website targets Riverhead students and alum, other Long Island high schools

An online forum where users browse and share nude photos from high schools around the country has a section specifically for Riverhead High School.

The website was brought to the attention of local officials this week after a Port Jefferson Station man found his teenage daughter’s photo posted without her permission on the site.

The website has pages for hundreds of schools nationwide, including many schools in Suffolk County.

“It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard,” said Kelly, a Riverhead alumna whose explicit photos were posted without her permission to the website. She learned of the posting from a reporter. [Editor’s note: Her name has been changed in this article to protect her identity.]

“It’s sickening,” she said. “I really feel like I’m going to start crying. Why would someone want to do that?”

As smartphones have become more and more widely used among students, the ease of taking and sending naked photos has created a very big problem for police departments, especially when the subjects in the photos are underage or shared online without the subject’s permission.

“These cases are complicated and there are a lot of issues,” said Riverhead Town Police Chief David Hegermiller. “First, we usually need a complainant.  Next, the ages of the subjects involved will be important.  Also, how the photo was obtained factors in.  Lastly, tracking down suspects and coming up with credible evidence via the internet isn’t as easy as you might think.”

For example, the anonymous nature of the internet can make it “very difficult” to find the person who posted the violating photos, he said.

“The web server may not even be in the U.S.,” he added.

The photo-sharing website in question is actually hosted in Switzerland, placing it out of U.S. jurisdiction. It is the same website where the hacked photos of nude celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton first appeared last fall.

But most of the website’s photos of Riverhead students and alumnae don’t seem to be the result of a hacking.

More likely, those posting the explicit photos (commonly referred to as “nudes” among teenagers and young adults) received the photos consensually.

“I was very surprised by how many of our students were sending and receiving these photos,” said Patrick Burke, Riverhead High School assistant principal.

Burke and high school librarian Kim McGurk held a “digital citizenship” class for the school’s ninth graders this January, which included a discussion about “inappropriate photos” and their repercussions. An anonymous survey during the class showed “shocking” numbers of ninth graders had participated in sending or receiving nude photos, Burke said.

“They didn’t really understand how these pictures can proliferate through the internet,” McGurk said. “They think it’s just them and their world. They didn’t really understand how quickly the pictures can spread.”

About 24 percent of high school-aged students and 33 percent of college students have sent nude or partially nude photos to another person.

Many of those young people, however, are in relationships with the other person when they share such private photos. Kelly is one of them.

“The only way I can think these got out is my ex-boyfriend,” Kelly said. “But I dated him three years ago, and I only sent those photos after we’d been together for a year and a half. I could never imagine him doing this. I really feel like I’m going to start crying.”

Her situation is unfortunately not a unique one. “Once you send these pictures, they’re out there forever,” McGurk said. “And then if you break up, they might be sending those photos around.”

And in the frequently turbulent dating lives of high schoolers, this means a girl’s naked photos can stay in the hands of a number of potentially vengeful exes.

“I don’t understand what the point of it is,” Kelly said tearfully. “What makes you want to see other girls’ naked, on the internet – a girl you don’t know – that’s so disgusting.”

“Kids send these photos for a lot of different reasons,” said Louise Wilkinson, who runs the Key Club and the Leo’s Club at Riverhead High School. “They might be feeling down about themselves, and they want to make an impression on a boy. It could be a way to build their self-esteem.”

Or, she added, it could be a “heat of the moment” encounter between people who have just recently met. “But the other person might only be interested in those photos,” Wilkinson said. “They might manipulate the conversation into that happening.”

The legal implications can get very nasty if the photo subject is underage, even if that photo isn’t spread around without the subject’s permission.

Possessing sexual images of a minor is considered child pornography, even if the photo was sent consensually. Teens found with nudes of a minor could face significant jail time, and they may need to even register as a sex offender, a label that will follow them around for life and restrict where they can live and work.

“Parents aren’t really having these conversations with their kids at home,” McGurk said. “They’ll tell them – ‘Don’t send bad photos!’ But then they don’t take the next steps — explaining how it can stick around on the internet, explaining how kids send these things around, explaining all the legal ramifications.”

Riverhead High School’s handbook has a portion dedicated to “cyberbullying,” with disciplinary action that ranges from mediation to suspension to a hearing with the superintendent. But it does not contain anything specific to sending nude pictures, nor about spreading them without the subject’s permission.

“We’ll be spending some more time this summer to make sure more things are included in the handbook for this sort of situation,” Burke said. “Right now, we’d just have to tie it in under other offenses.”

This was the first year that a “digital citizenship” seminar was available to ninth graders. Next year, Burke and McGurk hope to roll it out to all grade levels.

“Kids are just very ignorant of the technology,” he said. “And this is a message that needs to be given to all the students. They have no comprehension of the ramifications. Once you click send, you can’t take that back.”