James Delahunty
31 May 2017 13:16
The parents of a deceased teenager have been denied the right to access their late daughter's Facebook account by an appeals court.
In late 2015, a regional court in Berlin had ruled in favour of the mother as she sought to look for clues of whether or not her daughter had committed suicide. The 15 year old girl was killed by a subway train in Berlin in 2012.
According to the regional court, the girl's contract with Facebook passed to her parents when she died, and that since she had been a minor, she had no absolute right to privacy online as it was up to her parents to protect her rights.
That decision has been overturned by the Berlin appeals court this week, which has clarified that the right to private telecommunications outweighed the right to inheritance. The court also found that the parents' obligation to protect her rights expired with her death.
Facebook is refusing access to the girl's account, which has since been memorialised.