Parents Have No Right To Dead Child's Facebook Account, German Court Rules (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A German court rejected a mother's demand on Wednesday that Facebook grant her access to her deceased daughter's account. In the ruling, which overturned a lower court's decision, the Berlin appeals court said the right to private telecommunications extended to electronic communication that was meant only for the eyes of certain people. In the Facebook case, the mother of a 15-year-old who was hit and killed by a subway train in Berlin in 2012 had sought access to her daughter's account to search for clues as to whether the girl had committed suicide. Facebook had refused access to the account, which had been memorialized, meaning it was effectively locked and served as a message board for friends and family to share memories. A regional court in Berlin had ruled in favor of the mother in late 2015, saying that the daughter's contract with Facebook passed to her parents according to German laws on inheritance. It had also said that the girl's right to privacy was not protected because she was a minor and it was up to her parents to protect her rights. The appeals court said on Wednesday that the right to private telecommunications outweighed the right to inheritance, and that the parents' obligation to protect their daughter's rights expired with her death.

Comments

the parents' rights expire when she does

[turkeydance]

but her rights remain?

Re:the parents' rights expire when she does

[evolutionary]

Well, it's a slippery slope legally, especially in Germany who has a better privacy record in recent history than the USA does. The court basically said, this "individual" has their right to privacy and the supercedes the parents. While this may be stretching, it is conceivable that a parent could do ethically/morally questionable actions, like, say Internet abuse using social media tools if parents get automatic rights to all their children's account. In a game as big as the Internet, error on the side of caution is probably the wisest course of action with all risks taken into account.

Re:the parents' rights expire when she does

[WillgasM]

You're essentially saying you shouldn't legally be able to take a secret to your grave.

Re:the parents' rights expire when she does

[avandesande]

Sure you can, you don't write it down or tell anyone your secret.

Re:the parents' rights expire when she does

[by (1706743)]

I call it pretty damned cold-hearted. If that's what you want from your government, welcome to it.

But, unless I'm misunderstanding the issue, this is also a privacy issue for the deceased's friends. The deceased could very well have had conversations with her peers, conversations which no one wanted the parents to find out about. Facebook has a lot of bi-directional communication, so access to her account = access to things potentially said to her in confidence.

Re:the parents' rights expire when she does

[AmiMoJo]

At age 15 it's unlikely that her parents could demand access to her Facebook account even if she were alive. Privacy rules in Germany apply to children as well, with more and more allowance for parents the younger they are.

The age of consent is 14 in Germany. At age 15 she already had a lot of responsibility and privacy under German law.

Re:the parents' rights expire when she does

[angel'o'sphere]

The mother actually had the password.
But after the death of the daughter the account got moved into a "deceased status" and the old log in does not work anymore.

Minors can enter into a legal agreement?

[acoustix]

I'm not sure about German laws on this topic, but it seems to me that most nations consider the age of 15 to be a minor and that their legal guardians have total control of their possessions, including accounts of this nature. Rights of privacy wouldn't kick in until they are a legal adult.

I'm sure others will know more about this than me. I'm just starting the conversation...

Re:Minors can enter into a legal agreement?

[Sique]

It's not the right of privacy of the daughter, that the ruling was about, it's the right of privacy of the people she was talking to (probably mostly other minors the parents of the daughter were not legal wardens of). And those conversations thus are protected by the Secrecy of correspondence.

Re:Minors can enter into a legal agreement?

[gweihir]

And that is wrong from a legal point of view in Germany. There are stages at which people get legal autonomy. For example, at 14 they get religious autonomy and their parents from that time have no legal authority anymore about that question. For example, at 14 you can legally exit a church on your own say-so. People also get economic decision power to some degree at different ages and can do binding contracts up to certain amounts and of certain natures. And no, their stuff does not belong to their parents when it was legally acquired by them.

Yours is also a hugely immoral stance as you basically advocate that children are their parents property. I find that idea quite repulsive.

Incidentally, "privacy" is a human right and applies to anybody being recognized as human. It can only be limited because circumstances force that, e.g. for a toddler. But somebody 15 years of age certainly has that human right mostly in its full form.

Re:Minors can enter into a legal agreement?

[Solandri]

Yours is also a hugely immoral stance as you basically advocate that children are their parents property. I find that idea quite repulsive.

That (limited) viewpoint is usually the attitude adopted by legal minors.

The reality is that this isn't just a rights issue. It's a rights and responsibility issue. I don't know what the situation is in Germany, but in the U.S. the parents are fiscally responsible for their children's misdeeds until they become a legal adult. If a 17-yo drives a car into a store and destroys it in a fit of rage and can't pay for the damages himself, it falls upon the parents to pay for it.

So it isn't treating children as if they're property, as it is keeping rights and responsibility linked. If a 14-yo wants to be declared legally independent of his or her parents, I don't think most people would have a problem with it as long as he also became financially and criminally responsible for all his deeds as if he were an adult. Unfortunately, the way most teens want it is that they get all the rights of an adult, but their parents still have to bear all the responsibility (including paying for food, clothing, and shelter).

Without the linking of responsibility to rights, the parents effectively become wage slaves to children who are free to live as they wish. That too is immoral and repulsive. It's why Monsanto's stance with Round-Up Ready seed is immoral. They want all the rights that come with ownership of the patented seed (farmers who use it are forced to pay for it), but none of the responsibility that comes with it (organic farmers who don't want it can't sue them for damages if the seed blows onto their farms).

What right to private telecommunications?

[mysidia]

The appeals court said on Wednesday that the right to private telecommunications outweighed the right to inheritance

The already dead have no personal rights! Only their survivors have rights.
As for parental rights.... most of what the Child would have had in terms of possessions, online accounts, etc. would be the parent's property,
since children are not usually capable of acquiring their own computers, Etc, they use property purchased by the parent, under mutually agreed conditions.
There's nothing to inherit, if the Parent held title to all property and accounts in the first place.

and that the parents' obligation to protect their daughter's rights expired with her death.

What rights? Again, the dead have no ability to assert personal rights, and no rights to be protected.
Only their survivors have rights, which are theirs, and not the dead person's.

That's messed up

[c6gunner]

It seems to me like what the courts actually decided is that, when your child dies, Facebook has more rights to their personal property than you do.

Re:That's messed up

[avandesande]

Really that sums it up- facecuck is making money off her 'tribute' page

Letting go

[seoras]

It's not really a legal issue but the very sad case of a mother unwilling to let go of her child and what remains of the child's life.
I'm a father and I think I'd probably struggle to let go of anything of a life that I had created, loved and cared for.
A virtual online persona, in this case, has become the bedroom of the deceased that the mother wants to lock, preserve and occasionally visit when the grieving gets tough.
If, like someone else commented, she had the password for the account she's almost certainly already been through it looking for answers.
Some very good insightful comments on here from others about needing to protect the privacy of the living who were friends.
Still my heart goes out to the family.