A kiss is just a kiss — until it sparks a firestorm of controversy.

The teenager behind a recent on-camera smooch on the cheek of CBC B.C. reporter Megan Batchelor apologized to her on Monday morning.

Even so, it’s the latest televised incident sparking debate over what constitutes sexual assault in Canada — and how these incidents should be handled, from a legal and journalistic perspective.

Batchelor filed a report with the RCMP after someone came from behind, kissed her on the cheek and took a selfie while she was doing a Friday report from a music festival in Squamish, B.C., north of Vancouver.

On Monday, the CBC reported that Daniel Davies, 17, has since apologized.

“He only found out what happened when he left the festival. He feels terrible — I could hear it in his voice. He’s genuinely embarrassed,” Batchelor told the Star.

Batchelor said she won’t be pursuing criminal charges.

Still, this kind of incident can potentially provide the basis for sexual assault charges, according to legal experts.

“It is, from a legal point of view, the basis for sexual assault. Clearly she did not consent, and it’s contact of a sexual nature,” said Pamela Cross, a lawyer who works with women’s anti-violence organizations across Ontario.

Sexual assault is defined vaguely by the Criminal Code, she noted, and is largely determined by case law.

Martha Shaffer, associate professor of law at the University of Toronto, said this type of incident can “go either way” from a legal perspective. Any form of touching “without consent” constitutes assault, she said.

“Was the assault committed in circumstances of a sexual nature? That’s the legal test,” she said.

Courts consider various factors, such as the part of the body touched and the intent of the person doing the touching, Shaffer added.

The RCMP said they are still investigating the kiss incident following Batchelor’s initial report. Davies’ name was among the tips they received, according to Staff Sgt. Brian Cumming.

“The investigator is working (on Tuesday) and I’ve passed on the tips I received to her. And she will be looking at that file as per what she arranged with Megan when it happened,” he said. “We’ll obviously be following up and trying to determine if this is accurate.”

The B.C. incident happened within the larger context of female reporters being targeted during broadcasts across North America, particularly through a viral prank where passersby shout the phrase “F--- her right in the p----.”

Typically written with the acronym FHRITP, the vulgar phrase has been a trend since 2014, starting with a series of viral videos made by an American filmmaker showing staged interactions between phony reporters and passersby.

But there have since been real-world implications.

In Toronto earlier this year, cameras were rolling during a confrontation between CityNews reporter Shauna Hunt and fans at a Toronto FC game. The incident, which cost a Hydro One employee his job, began while Hunt was doing taped interviews after the Toronto soccer club’s game. Two men “in a row” shouted FHRITP while passing by, she told the Star in May.

She later confronted another group of men waiting nearby, and a subsequent expletive-laden exchange was caught on camera.

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Shawn Simoes, an assistant network management engineer who earned $106,510 last year, later lost his job. He appeared on-camera laughing and taunting Hunt, alongside several other men.

While the on-camera kiss in B.C. was “definitely an assault,” Shaffer said the FHRITP trend is a different legal scenario, since there is no physical touching.

“It’s demeaning a woman based on her gender. It’s sexualizing her, but it’s not assaultive,” she explained.

Batchelor’s initial decision to file an RCMP complaint following the kiss incident was met with both support and blowback online — with some suggesting Batchelor was overreacting or that she should have chosen a different profession or assignment location.

“If this is traumatizing to you, you probably shouldn’t be a journalist,” one person tweeted at Batchelor.

“(Some) reporters work in Iraq, Syria, and the like, but our precious little CBC girl can’t take the heat at #SquamishFest,” wrote another.

“I get really distraught at the idea of people starting to curtail the assignments of female journalists,” said Lisa Taylor, a journalism professor at Ryerson University and former CBC broadcast journalist. “This has always been a common problem with anything that is essentially a gendered crime.”

But these types of incidents can present a challenge for modern newsrooms, she noted, particularly since more on-air women are now working alone as videographers.

“Newsroom managers have got to walk a challenging line between not withholding opportunities from female journalists while having a culture where, if someone doesn’t feel comfortable with certain assignments because of gender, that they should be able to state that and have that concern respected,” she said.

Batchelor said she was angry that someone tried to interfere with her ability to do her job in a “professional way” and wanted to “draw a line in the sand” in light of similar incidents across the country.

“This is happening way too much,” she said. “By not doing something, it makes me look like I’m condoning it.”

According to the CBC report, Davies told Batchelor he initially thought it was “kind of a joke,” but later realized it wasn’t.

“That’s your career — obviously it’s also your body, and you have complete control of that and without anyone else’s consent, they do not have the right to do anything to anyone,” Davies told Batchelor, according to the report.

With files from the Canadian Press