A woman must delete photographs of her grandchildren that she posted on Facebook and Pinterest without their parents' permission, a court in the Netherlands has ruled.
It ended up in court after a falling-out between the woman and her daughter.
The judge ruled the matter was within the scope of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
One expert said the ruling reflected the "position that the European Court has taken over many years".
The case went to court after the woman refused to delete photographs of her grandchildren which she had posted on social media.
The mother of the children had asked several times for the pictures to be deleted.
The GDPR does not apply to the "purely personal" or "household" processing of data.
However, that exemption did not apply because posting photographs on social media made them available to a wider audience, the ruling said.
"With Facebook, it cannot be ruled out that placed photos may be distributed and may end up in the hands of third parties," it said.
The woman must remove the photos or pay a fine of €50 (£45) for every day that she fails to comply with the order, up to a maximum fine of €1,000.
If she posts more images of the children in the future, she will be fined an extra €50 a day.
"I think the ruling will surprise a lot of people who probably don't think too much before they tweet or post photos," said Neil Brown, a technology lawyer at Decoded Legal.
"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."
satansmetatron on May 21st, 2020 at 19:00 UTC »
There is a bit of a backstory to this:
-Mom and Gran have not been on speaking terms for over a year.
-Mom has 3 kids, one from a former marriage and two from her current relationship. She shares custody over the kid from her former marriage with her ex husband.
-The oldest kid (the one with the custody arrangement) has lived over at Gran's during the divorce proceedings.
-During this period (and following it) Gran posted pictures of this kid on FB and Pinterest without either parent's consent. She did not respond to requests from both of the parents to take the pictures offline. The parents were concerned for the kid's privacy.
-The law in the Netherlands states that pictures of kids under 16 years of age can only be posted online with the consent of their parents.
-If Gran does not comply she can be forced to pay a penalty of €1000. This sum goes to the claimants, aka the mom and her ex husband.
Have the source for this info in Dutch over here
BellatrixLenormal on May 21st, 2020 at 17:46 UTC »
My dad is frustrated that I no longer post pics of his grandkids. But I always ask them if it is ok, and after they got to be tweens they always shoot it down so I respect their wishes.
CaputGeratLupinum on May 21st, 2020 at 16:39 UTC »
She should have taken them down when her child asked her to, it's ridiculous that this even had to go to a court. This is a great way to never end up with any more pictures of your grandchildren