A grandmother, posting pictures of her grandchildren on Facebook, was ordered by the court to take the pictures down.
The grandmother and her daughter had an argument, resulting in the daughter dragging her mother to court over posting pictures of her children online. The daughter requested her mother delete the pictures of her children several times but the grandmother refused.
The judge dealing with the case in the Netherlands, after declaring that the case comes under the purview of GDPR (privacy) laws, ruled that the grandmother was to delete the pictures.
In this case, the judge decided that photos posted on social media platforms are open for public view, making the whole case come under the purview of GDPR laws.
“With Facebook, it cannot be ruled out that placed photos may be distributed and may end up in the hands of third parties,” said the ruling. “The UAVG stipulates that the permission of their legal representative(s) is required for the posting of photographs of minors who have not yet reached the age of 16. It has been established that the minor children of [plaintiff] are under the age of 16 and that [plaintiff], as legal representative, has not given permission to [defendant] to post photographs of her children on social media. In the case of [child 1], his father did not give [defendant] permission either.”
Furthermore, the grandmother was ordered to delete the pictures immediately or pay a fine of 50 euro for each day she fails to delete. The maximum fine would extend up to 1000 euro.
The ruling also stated that the grandmother would be fined 50 Euros a day whenever she posts any more pictures of the kids online again.
“I think the ruling will surprise a lot of people who probably don’t think too much before they tweet or post photos. Irrespective of the legal position, would it be reasonable for the people who’ve posted those photos to think, ‘Well, he or she doesn’t want them out there anymore’? Actually, the reasonable thing – the human thing to do – is to go and take them down,” said the technology lawyer at Decoded Legal, Neil Brown.
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