Parents to inherit Facebook content

Heirs in Germany have the right to access the Facebook accounts of their deceased relatives, a court said in a landmark privacy ruling on Thursday, July 12 saying a social media account can be inherited in the same way as letters. The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe ruled that the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was hit by a train in Berlin in 2012 could gain access to her daughter’s Facebook account, which social networklocked for privacy reasons.

Facebook, whose 29 million active users in Germany equateto more than a third of the population, said that weighing the wishes of relatives against protecting user privacy is one of the toughest decisions the company faces. „While we respectfully disagree with today’s decision … the lengthy process shows how complex the issue under discussion is,“ a company spokesman said.

The deceased girl’s parents wanted access to her account to try to find out whether her death had been by suicide or accident. Facebook had turned the girl’s profile into a ,memorial‘page, where access to the user data is denied even though the content is stillstored on Facebook’s servers. A lower court had ruled in favour of granting the parents full access to their daughter’s account data. Facebook appealed against that decision.

The ruling sets an important precedent in Germany. The country, seeking to learn from its 20th century history of Nazi and Communist totalitarian rule, has privacy laws designed to protect individuals against intrusion.

„Today’s verdict also affects other social media accounts, not just Facebook but Instagram and so on,“ a Federal Court spokeswoman said.

The decision comes less than two months after the European Union introduced a new privacy regime, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to strengthen people’s rights to their data and how companies handle it.

A recent survey by the German information technology association, Bitkom, showed that 49 percent of internet users said they did not care about what happens to their social media profiles after they die.

Ulf Buermeyer, head of the Society for Civil Rights in Berlin, said that the easy access state agencies have to nearly all data on social networks’ servers is afar greaterconcern than whether relatives can access it.

„While the parents of the deceased child had to spend years litigating to read their daughter’s messages, the National Security Agency and the Federal Intelligence Service would need a few mouse clicks,“ Buermeyer said, referring to the U.S. and German intelligence agencies.

RIHAM ALKOUSAA

Text pochází z agentury Reuters, Zdroj LN

SLOVÍČKA

content obsah

heir dědic

decease skonat, zesnout

ruling rozhodnutí

landmark zásadní

inherit zdědit

gain access získat přístup

lock uzamknout

equate to rovnat se čemu

weigh zvážit, uvážit

tough těžký, obtížný

face čelit, vypořádat se

respectfully se vší úctou

lengthy zdlouhavý

suicide sebevražda

memorial pamětní

deny zamítnout, upřít

store uložit, uchovávat

in favour ve prospěch

appeal odvolat se

intrusion proniknutí, naruše

affect postihnout, dotknout se

handle zacházet s

survey průzkum, anketa

concern obavy, znepokojení

litigate soudit se

referring to s odvoláním na