The online hook-up and dating site Tinder is co-operating with ACT Policing so that adverts will tell online users that consent to sex must be ongoing and clear.
Just going on the app does not amount to consent to sex.
"There is no doubt that dating applications such as Tinder is where people are meeting their future sexual partners," Detective Inspector Stephanie Leonard said.
"That's why we are pleased that Tinder was happy to partner with us and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre to remind Canberrans who use the platform about our affirmative consent rules in the ACT," the officer in charge of ACT Policing's Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Team said.
The campaign follows a toughening of the law last year. Under the ACT's Crimes (Consent) Amendment Act, "(a) consent to participate in a sexual act is not to be presumed; (b) every person has a right to choose not to participate in a sexual act; (c) a consensual sexual act involves ongoing and mutual communication and decision-making by the people participating in the sexual act".
From later in the month, the adverts will give the correct advice to Tinder users who may imagine falsely that hooking up on Tinder implies consent.
"Not everybody has the same intention when they're online," Chrystina Stanford who heads the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre said.
"Consent can be given and withdrawn at any point during any encounter," she said, "and I think that's something that often people aren't aware of.
"If you begin to engage sexually with someone and you don't feel comfortable at any point or there's something occurring that you don't like or feel is the right thing for you, it's OK to withdraw consent at that point."
She welcomed the adverts as a way of "reaching out" to young people who "have become the largest users of our crisis services at CRCC and we know that young people rely a lot on online mediums to meet each other".
"For the last 10 years, the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre has seen more and more people accessing online dating sites and unfortunately, as that occurs, we see higher levels of people being harmed."
Detective Inspector Leonard hoped that the adverts would help change attitudes. "We want to see a safe and respectful community where giving and receiving consent during sex and sexual acts becomes a normal part of everybody's relationship."
Across Australia, more than 3 million people are estimated to use dating apps like Tinder.
Research from the Australian Institute of Criminology found that one in three people had been subjected to in-person sexual violence, harassment and aggression perpetrated by someone they met on a mobile dating app or website in the past five years.
