Not all forms of harassment carry the same criminal weight. Insistent contact, unwanted phone calls, invasive messages, or obnoxious behavior in a place open to the public may suggest the application of Article 660 of the Italian Penal Code; however, it is not enough for a gesture to simply be annoying to the recipient. The law requires precise conditions, which concern the location or the means used, the character of the conduct, and the motive behind it.
I want to help you distinguish an unpleasant episode from an act that may constitute the petty offense of harassment or annoyance of persons, and to understand when instead persecutory acts—commonly known as stalking—come into play. We will also examine why social media messages do not follow an automatic rule, what term applies to the criminal complaint, and which facts deserve attention both for those who believe they have suffered harassment and for those who must defend themselves against an accusation.
What Article 660 of the Italian Penal Code Punishes
Article 660 c.p. protects personal peace against conduct that causes harassment or annoyance out of petulance or another reprehensible motive. The provision concerns acts committed in a public place or a place open to the public, or through the telephone. The penalty provided is arrest for up to six months or a fine of up to 516 euros. The current text can be consulted in the Penal Code on Normattiva.
Petulance does not mean simple insistence in a generic sense. In common parlance, conduct can be irritating without being a crime; on the criminal level, however, it requires an importunate, intrusive, or pretextual manner, accompanied by a reprehensible reason. Behavior directed at legitimately obtaining a response, recovering an asset, or asserting a claim does not automatically become harassment simply because the other person experiences it with distress.
The concrete context matters. A repeated request without necessity, aimed at disturbing or mortifying, may have a different meaning than unwanted communication connected to a real need and carried out in a proportionate manner. In an order collected in the archive of the Court of Lecce, the judge clarified that the mere subjective perception of annoyance is not enough: it must be verified whether the conduct has a plausible connection with the exercise of a right or reveals a mere spite or other reprehensible motive. You can read the reference from the Court of Lecce on Article 660 c.p..
Public Place, Telephone, and Digital Communications
The means employed is an essential element. Article 660 c.p. does not indiscriminately cover every harassment that takes place in a private relationship. If the conduct takes place in person, it must occur in a public place or a place open to the public: for example, a street, a business accessible to the public, or a space where other people can enter. An exclusively domestic dispute or a dispute in a strictly private place does not fall within the scope of Article 660 for this reason alone; this does not exclude that other rules may apply if threats, violence, or further conduct occur.
Telephone Calls and Unwanted Calls
The telephone constitutes a channel expressly provided by the norm. Traditional voice calls are not the only things that matter: what counts is the concrete ability of the means to break into the recipient's sphere. Frequency, timing, content, insistence after a refusal, and the reason for the contacts help to understand whether these are inopportune communications or penal relevance disturbance.
Messages on Apps and Social Media: No Automatic Answer
Digital platforms require a more careful verification. The Court of Cassation excluded, in a 2023 decision, that messages sent via Instagram or Facebook inherently integrated Article 660 c.p., valuing the recipient's ability to manage notifications and alerts. The same Court, however, deemed the offense configurable in a case examined in 2026, for repeated sendings on Messenger of sexually explicit messages and photographs, considering the invasiveness of the medium and the immediate perception by the female recipient. The two orientations show that the name of the app is not enough: effective functions, the type of content, and the concrete impact on the person's peace of mind assume relevance. The penal reviews of the Court of Cassation for 2023 and the penal review of the Court of Cassation for February 2026 are available.
Blocking a contact does not solve the issue by itself. Blocking can be a useful tool to delimit the duration of contacts or demonstrate the willingness to interrupt them, but it does not automatically erase what has already happened. At the same time, the ease of avoiding interaction can affect the evaluation of the invasiveness of the medium. For this reason, isolated screenshots without a date, identifiable account, and communication sequence rarely explain the entire affair by themselves.
The Difference Between Harassment and Stalking
Stalking requires a more serious and structured offense. Article 612-bis c.p. concerns repeated conduct of threats or harassment that causes at least one of the events indicated by law: a lingering and serious state of anxiety or fear, a well-founded fear for one's own safety or that of close persons, or a change in living habits. Therefore, it is not sufficient to count messages: it is necessary to ascertain both the repetition of the conduct and the concrete consequence produced on the offended person.
A single contact scheme can change legal qualification. Insistent phone calls and importunate messages can remain within the scope of Article 660 c.p. if they cause a disturbance without the effects required for persecutory acts. If, instead, the person modifies routes, schedules, work habits, social media presence, or ways of living their daily life to escape contacts, that data may point toward Article 612-bis c.p., provided it is connected to the contested conduct and adequately proven.
The penalty and procedure do not coincide. For persecutory acts, the applicable text as of December 17, 2025, provides for imprisonment from one to six years and six months, in addition to aggravating circumstances established by law. The criminal complaint, in ordinary cases, has a term of six months; cases in which proceedings are initiated ex officio remain. The discipline is reported in Law No. 181 of December 2, 2025, which also modified Article 612-bis c.p. For facts prior to the legislative amendments, the applicable law must be identified with careful attention to dates and rules on the succession of penal norms.
It is not useful to choose a label before the facts. Saying that a situation is certainly stalking because contacts are numerous can be misleading; likewise, defining every affair as simple harassment can hide important elements. The words used, any threatening or sexual content, duration, episodes in person, the existence of a clear refusal, and the effects on the life of the interested person form a picture that must be read as a whole.
Criminal Complaint: Term, Procedural Requirement, and Content of the Act
For Article 660 c.p., a criminal complaint is generally required. The reform of the criminal trial introduced the prosecutability upon a complaint by the offended person for this petty offense; instead, proceedings are initiated ex officio when the fact is committed against a person incapable due to age or infirmity. The modification is contained in Article 2 of Legislative Decree No. 150 of October 10, 2022, which entered into force on December 30, 2022.
The ordinary term is three months from the day the offended person has knowledge of the fact constituting the offense, according to Article 124 c.p., unless a special rule provides otherwise. Establishing the initial day is not always trivial when contacts repeat or when it is discovered at a later time who sent them. Waiting to calmly reconstruct the affair can therefore entail a concrete risk of forfeiture.
A criminal complaint must describe verifiable facts. It is useful to indicate dates, time slots, places, telephone numbers or profiles used, relevant words or content, and any persons present. There is no need to turn the act into a generic narrative of the entire relationship: it is necessary to make the episodes for which proceedings are requested recognizable. If chats, call logs, photographs, or audio files exist, they must be preserved in their original form when possible, without cuts that make them lose context or provenance.
The criminal complaint does not replace evidence. It sets out the facts and expresses the will for proceedings to take place, but ascertainment requires corroboration. On the other hand, a technical defense is not based solely on the assertion that the communication was harmless: it can be decisive to verify whether the contact was actually attributable to the suspect, whether the message is complete, whether the place falls under Article 660 c.p., and whether the petulance or reprehensible motive required by the norm truly exists.
Steps to Consider and Errors to Avoid
The first alternative is to interrupt non-essential contacts. If a concrete issue exists between people to manage, such as the return of property or a contractual relationship, essential, respectful, and documentable communication is different from repeated calls or messages to gain attention. When there is no current necessity, insisting after a refusal exposes one to greater risk and makes it harder to explain a lawful purpose.
Those who suffer contacts should preserve the sequence, not just the most offensive messages. Date, time, profile, preceding context, and given reaction make it possible to understand whether it is an isolated episode, petulant behavior, or conduct that impacted living habits. Responding with threats, spreading private conversations, or publishing the other person's data can, however, create additional problems and does not constitute a form of protection.
Those who receive an accusation must avoid impulsive explanations. Deleting chats, repeatedly contacting the offended person to clarify or ask to withdraw the initiative can worsen the conflict and alter the evidentiary framework. It is more useful to establish chronology, communication channels, the concrete reason for contacts, and the full content of conversations. I can help you distinguish what is actually contested from what belongs merely to personal conflict, also evaluating whether the described facts correspond to the indicated norm.
An immediate danger requires concrete protection. If harassment is accompanied by credible threats, stalking, unauthorized access to the home, or current fear for safety, it is not prudent to treat the situation as a dispute to be resolved with new messages. In an emergency situation, the single number 112 must be contacted; the legal qualification of the fact will then be evaluated by the competent authorities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I file a criminal complaint for messages received on WhatsApp or social media?
You can file a complaint if you believe you have suffered an offense, but the app used is not enough to prove Article 660 c.p. For digital communications, invasiveness, notifications, immediacy of perception, content, and repetition are relevant. Keep the complete conversation, account data, and dates: the qualification can change if threats or effects traceable to stalking emerge.
Do I have three months for harassment under Article 660 c.p.?
Yes, as a rule, the ordinary term is three months from notice of the fact, because Article 660 c.p. is prosecutable upon complaint except in the case of a person incapable due to age or infirmity. In facts composed of multiple contacts, the running of time requires attention: it is not wise to wait trusting that each episode automatically reopens the term.
Is a single phone call enough to constitute the offense?
There is no minimum number written in the norm, but a single phone call is not automatically criminally relevant harassment. It is required to have caused disturbance and to have been carried out out of petulance or another reprehensible motive. Insistence, schedules, content, and the refusal already expressed by the recipient are elements that can change the reading of the episode.
If I block the number or profile, does the offense no longer exist?
Blocking can stop future contacts, not erase previous ones. It can also constitute a useful element to demonstrate that the person did not desire further communications. However, for digital messages, the ability to block or silence the contact can affect the evaluation of the invasiveness of the medium, without automatically resolving the issue.
When does harassment become stalking?
It becomes persecutory acts when repeated conduct produces one of the effects required by Article 612-bis c.p.: serious and lingering anxiety or fear, well-founded fear for safety, or a change in living habits. It is not necessary for all these effects to be present, but at least one must result and must be connected to the contested conduct.
Essential Normative References
The main references are Article 660 c.p. and Article 612-bis c.p., to be read together with the rules on complaints and the concrete succession of laws over time. For an affair already underway, the exact chronology of facts, contacts, and knowledge of the author can affect actionable protection. If you need to file a criminal complaint or defend yourself against an accusation, you can contact me to examine the facts without confusing a personal conflict with an undemonstrated penal qualification.