A German appellate court recently denied a mother’s request to access her deceased daughter’s Facebook page. The mother had tried to access the page in 2012 after her daughter was hit by a train and killed. She wanted to determine if there was any indication of depression that might implicate suicide rather than accident. Facebook refused to provide the mother access based on their strict policy of not providing login information to someone else’s account. In the case of death, Facebook will freeze a user’s page and “Remembering” is placed over the decedent’s name. The page may only be removed through request of a verified immediate family member. The appellate court, overturning a lower court on Wednesday, said that the privacy rights of the user bore a superior interest to inheritance rights and denied the mother’s request for access.
See Ali Breland, German Court Rejects Mother’s Request to Access Deceased Daughter’s Facebook, The Hill, May 13, 2017.
Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law) and Lewis Saret (Attorney, Washington, D.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
