Slashdot Mirror
Court Demands Private Facebook Data
Defeat Globalism writes in with a Canadian court decision that has ordered a man suing over injuries from a car accident to answer questions about content on his private "friends only" Facebook page. "Lawyers for Janice Roman, the defendant in the lawsuit, believe information posted on John Leduc's private Facebook site — normally accessible only to his approved 'friends' — may be relevant to his claim an accident in Lindsay in 2004 lessened his enjoyment of life. As a result of the ruling by Justice David Brown of Ontario's Superior Court of Justice, Leduc must now submit to cross-examination by Roman's lawyers about what his Facebook page contains. Brown's Feb. 20 ruling also makes clear that lawyers must now explain to their clients 'in appropriate cases' that postings on Facebook or other networking sites — such as MySpace, LinkedIn and even blogs — may be relevant to allegations in a lawsuit, said Tariq Remtulla, a Toronto lawyer who has been following the issue."
Like harrassment, it really isn't up to the perpetrator to determine just how victimized a victim feels.
It is unclear to everyone but the victim just how much loss of enjoyment of life he sustained. Using something as innocuous and meaningless as tweets on Facebook to determine someone's state of mind is like trying to determine the intelligence of someone from their postings on Slashdot.
Can the courts require that relatives and friends turn over data to the court? Why not just require every contact the suspect or defendant has turn over "pertinent data including email, voicemails, contact lists, letters, bank accounts and personal ties?
If I ever got in trouble Kevin Bacon would go down.
2000 called, they want their troll back.
From what I understood from this article, and a surprisingly poorly written one for a newspaper imo, is simply that their private facebook postings maybe relevant to a civil court case, and they'll have to provide them to the other side.
I don't see any problems here. In reading groklaw over the years I was surprised at the level of disclosure IBM and SCO had to provide eachother, whole servers of data were exchanged.
The moral of the story and a good example in the article: If you're on disability and post pics of yourself skiing on your facebook, even only visible to 'friends', don't be surprised if it comes back to bite you in the ass.
If you post it online, you should assume anyone can see it. None of these minor protections like "friends only" are any sort of serious impediment. Online is where things go to be seen by the world. So, if you aren't comfortable with it getting out, don't post it. That's not to say you can't make use of privacy settings, just don't count on them to keep everyone out.
If something is private, keep it off websites and other such things. If something is really private, keep in encrypted and/or stored in a secure location (like a good safe). If something is really, really private, don't have a record of it at all, keep it just in your head.
Duh!
Its called discovery.
I don't know about canadian laws, but in the US, any documents relevant to a lawsuit can be sought a party to the suit, even from non-parties from facebook, and this can be backed up by a court with a subpoena.
Its all in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
F.R.C.P. 26(b)(1): "Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense"
F.R.C.P. 34(1)(a): "A party may serve on any other party a request within the scope of Rule 26(b) ... to produce ... any designated documents or electronically stored information"
F.R.C.P. 45 covers subpeonas.
Basically, the rules are: if its relevant to the suit, and not privileged (like spousal privilege or 5th amendment self incrimination rights), it can be sought by a party. Even private letters to friends. That this information was published to friends on an online service probably means that any privilege the material had was waived.
If you have evidence, you may be compelled to produce it. This shouldn't shock anybody - our justice system won't work without it. Whether or not it's "private" doesn't matter except as provided in the rules or protected by law as "privileged" material.
Finally - its right there in the facebook privacy policy: "We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws."
The Rules of Civil Procedure govern this case. There's nothing new about this case, per se. Anything published on Facebook is a relevant document, and the laws of Ontario oblige disclosure (even if that document was private, notwithstanding rare exceptions for such as solicitor-client privilege) by the person with control over it.
The relevant section governing documentary discovery is Rule 30. Rule 30.01 defines "document", and 30.02 places an obligation on a party to make appropriate disclosure of all relevant documents. The curious can read more about a report on electronic discovery in the Ontario Bar Association's guidelines (pdf) (see also OBA "e-discovery"), and a e-Discovery web-site.
I've reproduced cited excerpts of Rule 30, here:
RULE 30 - DISCOVERY OF DOCUMENTS
INTERPRETATION
30.01 (1) In rules 30.02 to 30.11,
(a) "document" includes a sound recording, videotape, film, photograph, chart, graph, map, plan, survey, book of account, and data and information in electronic form; and
(b) a document shall be deemed to be in a party's power if that party is entitled to obtain the original document or a copy of it and the party seeking it is not so entitled.
SCOPE OF DOCUMENTARY DISCOVERY
Disclosure
30.02 (1) Every document relating to any matter in issue in an action that is or has been in the possession, control or power of a party to the action shall be disclosed as provided in rules 30.03 to 30.10, whether or not privilege is claimed in respect of the document.
There are some interesting scenarios related to Sedona obligations, namely the obligation to not destroy or delete electronic documents once a party has been advised of the potential relevance of certain electronic documents.
We all know they should evaluate his porn downloads, not Facebook, to get an accurate assessment of the impact to his enjoyment of life.
Why stop at facebook? I want his house raided, maybe he keeps a personal diary hidden in his daughter's room, camouflaged with flower stickers, stenographically encoded in valley speak.
But... the future refused to change.
Alternately you should always write your profile entirely in 1337 5p33k so that if such a subpoena should ever come, the court will have to obtain an expert witness to translate the content. |\/|y L1f3 ha5 b3c0m3 teh suxx0rz!!
Under the law if you divulge secrets to third parties, they're no longer secrets. So if I write three friends about a secret, heck, even one friend, the state can subpoena those letters even though they were marked as private. The same is true of Facebook. Merely marking a Facebook page as private does not change the fact that it was used to give out information to third parties.
The only exception to this is if there is some sort of privilege. Such as when the third party is a priest or your therapist and is legally obligated not to divulge your secret. Then, there's an expectation of privacy that you keep. But if you tell your friends, it's discoverable under the law. And it's been this way for centuries.
Note to the internet generation: If you want to keep secrets, don't fricken tell anyone your secrets!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The reality is though ... a fabricated digital facade, a impression you wish to create of yourself to be viewed by others be they strangers or friends.
there, corrected it for you. :-)
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.