Possession

From Seenoevil

In R v Ross Warwick Porter (2006) the defendant was convicted of offenses concerned with possessing child pornography on his computer. In appeal it was found that the images had been deleted before his arrest and could be retrieved only with the support of specialist forensic technologies. As a result, the appeal was held and it is now generally accepted that if an individual cannot retrieve or gain access to obscene content, then they cannot be regarded as having custody or control of it. However, as retrieval technology becomes simpler and more available, it will become likely that the jury will find that the user could, with little effort, retrieve deleted data. [1]

If possession of certain material is made illegal, many people may become afraid to report its distribution, as it is unlikely that anyone will see this imagery without, in a (potentially legally binding) sense, possessing it.