Avon Chambers Acts Against Online Defamation and Privacy Threats

Defamed on a Facebook Live, Threatened with Leaked Salon CCTV Footage and an AI-Altered Photograph: Avon Chambers Serves Legal Notice

Our client is a social media influencer, brand promoter and businesswoman. She had been a regular customer of a beauty salon in Dhaka and had taken its services on several occasions, trusting, as every customer does, that her presence, appearance and treatment inside the salon would be kept private.

In July 2026, another social media influencer went live on Facebook from inside that same salon. The salon is run by her elder sister. The broadcast lasted around two hours. Throughout it, the influencer repeatedly and falsely claimed that our client had gone to various people and businesses and told them she would refuse to work with, or be associated with, anyone who hired the influencer. The allegation was baseless. It was made to portray our client as vindictive and hostile, before a large public audience, and it caused serious harm to her personal and professional reputation.

The salon owner did not simply appear in the background. She was heard naming our client during the broadcast, identifying her to viewers and linking her directly to the allegations. Viewers were also encouraged to join in, and a number of them posted defamatory and offensive comments about our client. Those comments were left visible and were not moderated, removed or discouraged, even though the person hosting the Live had full control of the broadcast and its comment section.

Most seriously, during the same Live our client was threatened that photographs, videos and CCTV footage of her recorded inside the salon would be published, leaked or circulated. The apparent purpose of the threat was to intimidate, humiliate and embarrass her, and it left her in grave fear that private images and recordings would be made public. In addition, an AI-generated or digitally manipulated image of our client, altering her full-sleeve blouse to a crop top, was published without her knowledge or consent on a business page connected to the two sisters. Although it was later removed, it was seen by others, and its creation and circulation was a further, separate act of harassment and misrepresentation.

Customers of a beauty salon or any similar establishment are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their appearance, treatment, images and presence on the premises. Taking or keeping images of a customer without permission, and publishing or threatening to publish customer photographs, videos or CCTV footage, is a serious breach of privacy, confidentiality and trust. Such conduct also undermines the confidence and safety of every other customer of that establishment.

On behalf of our client, Avon Chambers served a legal notice on the influencer and the salon owner, relying on the following provisions of law:

1. 1. Articles 31 and 43 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, which guarantee every citizen the protection of the law against action harmful to her body, reputation or property, and the right to privacy of her correspondence and other means of communication;
2. 2. Sections 499 and 500 of the Penal Code, 1860, on defamation;
3. 3. Sections 503 and 506 of the Penal Code, 1860, on criminal intimidation, including the enhanced punishment where the threat is to impute unchastity to a woman;
4. 4. Section 383 of the Penal Code, 1860, on extortion;
5. 5. Section 509 of the Penal Code, 1860, on words, gestures or acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman;
6. 6. Section 25 of the Cyber Security Act, 2026 (Act No. 81 of 2026), which covers sending, publishing or threatening to publish images or videos, including material created by artificial intelligence or edited, through a digital medium with intent to blackmail or harass, with enhanced punishment where the victim is a woman; and
7. 7. Section 8(2) of the Pornography Control Act, 2012.

Through the notice, our client demanded that the other side:

1. 1. immediately remove the Live recording and all related clips from every platform on which they were posted;
2. 2. immediately stop all threats to publish photographs, videos or CCTV footage of her;
3. 3. confirm in writing that no such material has been published, shared, uploaded, copied or disclosed to anyone;
4. 4. permanently delete all such material in their possession or control, and give a sworn undertaking before a Notary Public that it will never be disclosed or circulated in the future;
5. 5. identify everyone to whom the Live or its clips were forwarded, and send each of them a written retraction;
6. 6. publish a written, unconditional public apology, as prominent as the original broadcast, pinned for at least five days on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and any other platform where the content appeared; and
7. 7. pay substantial compensation for the injury to her reputation, the mental agony and humiliation she has suffered and her fear of further harm.

The other side was given five days from receipt of the notice to comply. If they do not, our client has made clear that civil and criminal proceedings will be brought without further notice, including proceedings for defamation, criminal intimidation and offences under the Cyber Security Act, 2026, together with an application for injunctive relief.

This matter shows that the law in Bangladesh does not stop at the edge of the screen. A Live broadcast is a publication. Encouraging an audience to abuse someone does not shift the responsibility away from the person hosting it. A threat to leak private images is an offence in itself, whether or not the images are ever released. And an AI-edited photograph of a real woman, published without her consent, is not a harmless edit but an act the law now expressly addresses.

Senior Associate Advocate Radia Khandker and Associate Barrister Farha Binte Azad Etu of Avon Chambers advised on and dealt with the matter on behalf of the client.