Facebook Ordered To Explain Deleted Profile (bbc.com) 70
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BBC: Facebook has been ordered by a UK high court judge to reveal who told it to delete the profile of a jazz musician and his band, six months after he died. The Times reports that the firm said it had acted on a request but had declined to reveal to the family who had instructed it. Mirza Krupalija's partner Azra Sabados says she is certain that it was not a family member or friend. She said losing his posts and messages felt like losing him "a second time." Mr Krupalija, who lived in Sarajevo, suffered a fatal heart attack just after his 57th birthday in 2016. Ms Sabados said she spent a year talking to Facebook before pursuing legal action.
Ms Sabados' lawyer Greg Callus from the law firm 5BR confirmed to the BBC that Facebook is now required to provide the details under what is legally known as a Norwich Pharmacal Order -- where Facebook is innocent but may have information about a third party who could be involved in wrongdoing. The firm will have 21 days to respond.
Ms Sabados' lawyer Greg Callus from the law firm 5BR confirmed to the BBC that Facebook is now required to provide the details under what is legally known as a Norwich Pharmacal Order -- where Facebook is innocent but may have information about a third party who could be involved in wrongdoing. The firm will have 21 days to respond.
zip it? (Score:2)
zip up the profile and stick that up?
I mean if the messages were that important, maybe someone should've copied them? They did have six months to do so.
Re:zip it? (Score:4, Insightful)
But... but it's THE CLOUD.
Nothing can possibly happen to your data as long as it's in the cloud. /s
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If they did, then they should have what they care for. They can host it on a website they control. Facebook certainly isn't public.
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Damned if you do, damned if you don't (Score:3, Interesting)
Between GDPR and this case, how is a company like Facebook supposed to know whether it should preserve or delete data?
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GDPR requires you identify yourself, a random person can't delete your stuff whether you are alive or dead.
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If not, who gets to request deletion of your data?
The executor of the will and/or legal next of kin who has the death certificate, dipshit.
Have you never had to deal with the death of a family member? Oh, you haven't, then how about you stop asking stupid fucking questions and go educate yourself.
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You'll note that neither article nor summary say the executor of his estate asked Facebook for the info. Rather, they suggest -- by saying the dead guy's "partner" was "sure" neither a friend nor family member asked -- that more than one party might have legitimately made the request.
And of course it hasn't been "settled for ages" whether GDPR rights are extinguished by death, because GDPR itself hasn't been settled for ages.
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Technically Facebook have no contractual relationship with the estate, the executor or the legal next of kin. They can do whatever the fuck they want with the data within the constrains of the law, including deleting it forever.
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Of the legal next of kin says they did not request it, I'd be pretty sure the company has to divulge who made the request - and the court agrees with that assessment. Note FB did not say they don't know who made the request, they just refuse to say who it was and obviously this was way before GDPR came in effect.
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Not in the EU and GDPR asside I think as a general mater yes you should loose are your rights at time of death. You body should be considered the property of either your next of kin or whoever you will it to.
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Privacy rights extend beyond death in the EU, because if people knew that they didn't it would affect them while they were alive. Also, the privacy of their families and anyone else involved has to be considered too.
I like the EU's default privacy stance. All violations of privacy should require consent or strong justification.
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Once you die, do your GDPR rights disappear?
Yes, they do indeed disappear, similar to how you cannot be sued for defaming or libelling the dead.
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how is a company ... supposed to know whether it should preserve or delete data?
It's easy. You do both, just like it says.
:-) , sucks to be you. We've got to help pay our salaries, legal system, and country, don't you know? Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
OH, but you BROKE the law? FINE then
What? There's an inconsistency somewhere? Don't worry, we'll add in another law to "help out".
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It's a tough problem but I suspect one that is solvable with $10B USD,.leaving them a fair amount of net profit for whatever they want.
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/... [nasdaq.com].
Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't (Score:4, Informative)
Can it, shill.
Most organisation require a copy of the death certificate before taking any action.
So, either facebook could require a copy of the death certificate, or facebook could simply do absolutely nothing, and tell the next-of-kin to simply reset the password suing the associated email account. Oh, you don't have access to the associated email account? Show the death certificate to the email provider - not facebook's problem.
Re: Damned if you do, damned if you don't (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah but Facebook is like an emergency service for so many people. It needs to be regulated like 911 and hospitals!
No, People need to be trained that Facebook has no obligation to host their content. And doubly none once they're dead. It's a free service; you get what you pay for. Want to publish content? Pay for hosting somewhere.
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How do you know they didn't do that in this case? The lady who filed this complaint was the guy's girlfriend. She doesn't claim to be his next of kin or executor or anything like that.
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Most organisation require a copy of the death certificate before taking any action.
WTF? No, not at all. In fact a good chunk of the GDPR is about not requiring someone to die before their data is deleted. There are a myriad of laws now that require data to be removed. The only question is why is Facebook not complying with an attempt to expose someone who fraudulently had the data removed.
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All thinking people know that you need to delete data when appropriate and save it when appropriate.
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caviare now does impersonation of Kripke from The Big Bang Theory.
"And how that's my pwobwm, no wait, that's not my pwobwm."
But seriously, if facebook and similar companies fell off the face of the earth, after an initial shock, who would mourn?
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Facebook doesn't have any idea who requested the deletion. It could have been any member of the public or their own staff. They just don't have that tight of a lock down on server access, period. That's why they're keeping silent; this would look very bad for them if people started to realize they had no control over their own staff, let alone the monster they've created.
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Whether data should be kept or deleted will be in the conditions of use. Now taking into account the current we don't give a fuck, dick brained attitude of typical programmers, bugs are normal features of all their programs. There 100% will be a clause something along the lines of, 'Your data we warrant it not, not in the least, not only will we not bother to protect it, we wont bother to preserve it, we don't give one fuck about it, WATCH THIS AD INSTEAD'.
Why are they bothering with court, they don't wont
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Who needs nuance (Score:1)
People angry at Facebook before today: HOW DARE YOU RETAIN INFORMATION ABOUT US
People angry at Facebook today: HOW DARE YOU NOT RETAIN INFORMATION ABOUT US
Re:Who needs nuance (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, they just want to know what happened. Who requested the deletion and why. Facebook should be able to answer that. For some reason they don't want to.
Re:Who needs nuance (Score:4, Interesting)
Arbitrary disclosure of that kind of information would run afoul of the GDPR. They may need a court order to be legally allowed to release the info.
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I can see that.
Neo-Euro colonialism (Score:2)
They're trying to regain power over their former colonies thru lawfare.
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Facebook isn't a former colony. HTH.
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Facebook isn't a former colony. HTH.
Did anyone else hear the whoosh?
Facebook is based out of California. In 1821 Mexico (including Alta California) gained its independence from Spain. In 1846 Alta California rebelled against Mexico and formed the California Republic. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) granted ownership of that land to the USA (which was an English colony before declaring independence in 1776). California gained statehood in 1850.
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There's no whoosh. Even if the EU had complete control over everything Facebook did, they'd still have no control over America. It's simply a dumb idea.
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There's no whoosh. Even if the EU had complete control over everything Facebook did, they'd still have no control over America. It's simply a dumb idea.
Vinegar Joe was saying that the EU is trying to control former colonies (such as the US) by regulating what US-based companies must do.
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Of course it's still there. But will Facebook explain who deleted it or will they claim it was a "bug" and then simply reactivate it?
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I'm gonna bet on the latter, unless this guy somehow set up a timed script to delete the profile himself posthumously. Then things will get weird.
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In the EU they have a legal obligation to delete that data, so even if they didn't they have to pretend they did or face a massive data protection investigation/fine.
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"Greg Callus from the law firm 5BR confirmed..." (Score:2)
Is this law firm being run out of a McMansion?
Neither of them were Facebook customers (Score:2)
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huh? (Score:3)
Does Facebook have some contractual obligation here? They can delete anyone's account anytime they want, can't they?
If they are magically a public utility now, we'll have to have words with them about many, many more things than just this,
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Does Facebook have some contractual obligation here? They can delete anyone's account anytime they want, can't they?
If they are magically a public utility now, we'll have to have words with them about many, many more things than just this,
As so many pople use them, like the Post office and Teleco's, I think they are a public service, and therefore they DO have a public obligation.
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Indeed they (probably) can.
And a Norwich Pharmacal Order is an order that the court can make of an *innocent* third party to force them to disclose the identity of someone that appears to have wronged someone else so that the someone else can sue the someone.
Usually the plaintiff has to pay the defendants costs and indemnify them (although the plaintiff can then recover those costs from the eventual target of their action)
The original case was Norwich Pharmacal v HMCE. NP had evidence their patent was being
if its truly deleted... (Score:1)
Why would Facebook keep profiles of dead people? (Score:2)
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Not that I'm a fan of Facebook, but, dead people don't use Facebook and view advertisements, so I don't see what value Facebook gets out of maintaining their profiles. Even living people, FB has no actual obligation to host their content and profiles. They do so because they gather the advertising dollars and sell the consumer analytics.
My father passed away 2 years ago. he had a shared Facebook account with my mother (still living and primary heir of his estate). We've maintained the Facebook account because it documents his life. My dad literally touched tens of thousands of lives. We've downloaded what we can, but his account is still active and serves as a memorial. My grandmother passed away 1 year ago (in fact, it was on the 1 year anniversary of my dad's death). My aunt (the executor of my grandma's will) maintains the Facebook acco