Court Rules It's Ok To Tag Pics On Facebook Without Permission

neoflexycurrent writes "A federal court has ruled that photos of a woman on Facebook showing her drinking were properly used as evidence in a child custody case. She had argued she was identified without permission. But the court rejected that argument. In reaching that decision, the court made the interesting observation that: '[t]here is nothing within the law that requires [one's] permission when someone takes a picture and posts it on a Facebook page. There is nothing that requires [one's] permission when she [is] "tagged" or identified as a person in those pictures.'"

Comments

Re:tagging is fine

[realityimpaired]

Well, see, in countries where there's decent privacy laws, it's illegal to take a picture of somebody where that person is the subject of the photo, and then to publish that photo without their permission. You can still be in the background of a picture, as "noise" as it were, but if you're the actual *subject* of the picture, then they need permission to publish. (so those tourist photos you took of the Eiffel tower are fine: those people wandering around in the square below it are not the subject of the picture)

Such laws usually have to do with newspapers and magazines, but they could be extended to apply to people posting pictures of their friends on the 'net, but I don't think that kind of use was really in the minds of the lawmakers when they drafted this kind of law.