Can the exact same picture be legal or illegal depending on the circumstances?

[Senzo]

My parents took a lot of photos when me and my brothers were kids and in some of them we were naked. This was no problem since they weren't sexually suggestive, they were just innocent photos that were kept in memory albums with other family photos.

An outside person who had authority over me and my twin brother suspected a case of abuse and made a report (it must be said that when you don't really know my mother, there is indeed reason to ask questions lol). We then received a visit from social services who took the time to go through everything, and again these photos, due to their context and the way in which they were preserved, posed no problem. Ultimately, nothing could confirm any mistreatment and no follow-up was given to this visit. Spoiler: we really weren't mistreated.

I know that if there had been CP or if these same photos had been taken with the aim of being shared with pedos, the outcome would clearly not have been the same, especially since the social services came in the belief that there was a problem.

[Rugby]

I'll answer this the only way I can and the only way we all, should keep in mind:

If a jurisdiction establishes a law that is subsequently illegal, it is the mandate of that jurisdiction to enforce applicable penalties.

In the precise moment there is a violation that is otherwise an "unwritten law" and cannot be adjudicated or even simply charge, government will always pass legislation unequivocally, and very probably inevitably, months before the legislation in question had been established.

What I am saying is: If any given action or event occurs outside of the presence of a law - the claim will mysteriously have been legislated long before the event occurs.

In example: If it is illegal to photograph a flamingo between the hours of 8:00 and 23hh on Tuesday and you were to have photographed the aforementioned flamingo at 2301hh on a Tuesday, enforce the laws governing that photograph and its penalties as a crime while claiming the law had always been there.

[Malt]

Say a non-sexual nude image of a child in the bath for example.

Recently I did a distant relative a favor in which I had to transfer all the images on their old digital camera to a USB stick.

I noticed one of their pictures was of their 5-year-old granddaughter at home completely naked in the bath, pussy clearly on show.

I was intrigued to know that there are still people who do that today. I assumed it was one of those things you don't see happening anymore because of modern day standards.

But part of me still thinks that in the right circumstances, the authorities would choose to prosecute some people for having that kind of thing in their possession.  Say someone already known to be a sex offender, or if one has that non-sexual image stored alongside hardcore child pornography.

I still feel this is a highly flawed and unfair system if the authorities can make up their own mind on whether to prosecute someone based on their opinion, and not by the book which states whether a non-sexual image of a child is legal or illegal.

Does anyone have any knowledge on this inquiry?

In law, everything depends. Mens rea / intent is often paramount in any case a prosecutor would file. Since such matters can be open to interpretation... It is very unlikely the prosecutor will do so in your favor. Your defense attorney can spin it. It would be one hell of a gamble though.

[Rivers]

Yes, it can.
Case in point: Azov videos.
A brand of nudist boy videos marketed and sold specifically to pedophiles.
They were busted years ago, as was anyone who purchased the videos.
They look indistinguishable from your run-of-the-mill nudist video, with just a bit more focus on boys.
Yet, since it was done for pedophiles, and pedophiles were known to purchase them with specific erotic intentions, they were deemed CP.
One may say that a good lawyer could have spun that around. Perhaps. But it didn't happen, and a lot of people went to prison.

[Katou]

Videos and photos of nudism are an incredible gray area, I know that being a nudist does not mean being a pedophile, many pedophiles who are part of nudist communities talk about how delicate the subject is to discuss within the communities, but we always joke about the fact that the majority of the material generated for lifestyle websites and advertisements are from children and young people, of course, not from the material available on Dark because they are previously selected, but there are other factors that explain the greater number of content with children and young people in addition to pedophilia , motifs that balance the gray zone.

[johnsmithson23]

i used to work in a print shop, and wed get plenty of nude photos, of all sorts. never reported anything, not really our business. staff did sometimes share a peak hahaha .

its not a good business to report customers, by 'snooping' on their photos