Dean Smith
Oct 1, 20152 min
“The photographs being sought were reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence as they are ‘powerfully relevant to the damage issues in the lawsuit’ and further stated that ‘there is no better portrayal of what an individual’s life was like than those photographs the individual has chosen to share through social media.’”
“The plaintiff’s privacy interest in such posted photographs was minimal, if any. The court stated that ‘before the right to privacy attaches, there must exist a legitimate expectation of privacy’ and that they ‘agree with those cases concluding that, generally, the photographs posted on a social networking site are neither privileged nor protected by any right of privacy, regardless of any privacy settings that the user may have established.’”
“The court held that the expectation that such information shared through social networking websites is private is not a reasonable one. As the Court aptly stated, ‘Facebook itself does not guarantee privacy. By creating a Facebook account, a user acknowledges that her personal information would be shared with others. Indeed, that is the very nature and purpose of these social networking sites else they would cease to exist.’”
Also note that the plaintiff’s appeal regarding the invasion of privacy according to the Stored Communications Act does not come into play for this case, as the act stops the provider, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., from exposing the information. The photographs were requested from the plaintiff who was in complete control of her electronically stored communications.WIN, WIN, WIN!Source