The High Court in Northern Ireland has awarded £20,000 in damages to a convicted sex offender for the misuse of private information.
Facebook Ireland Limited hosted a page operated by Joseph McCloskey entitled, 'Keeping our Kids Safe from Predators 2". The social media giant also hosted a page by RS, the father of one of CG's victims.
CG brought the case seeking damages and an injunction on the basis that Facebook and Mr. McCloskey misused private information, breaching Article 2, Article 3 and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and are guilty of actionable negligence.
The case relates to a series of postings on Facebook. The first series of posting was on the profile page of Mr. McCloskey in April 2013, attracting more than 180 comments, all hostile to CG. The contents were removed by early June. The second series of postings was on the profile page of RS, appearing in November 2013 and removed in early December. The second series of postings included a photograph of CG, shared more than 1,600 times and the name of the area CG was thought to reside in. The third series of postings also appeared on the profile page of RS in late December 2013, removed in January 2014.
The High Court heard the system operated by Facebook to remove content requires the complainant to provide the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for each posting which a complaint is made about. Mr. Justice Stephens observed that this requires the complainant to accurately record the URL for each posting, and requires the reasons to be provided as to why each posting should be removed. Mr. Justice Stephens described this system as "laborious":
The question also arises as to whether the requirement to have the URLs of each comment about which complaint is being made merely creates the potential for entering into endless and in some circumstances fruitless correspondence because with each new posting there is a new URL so there is endless potential to identify each URL given the speed with which comments can be added.
In evidence, CG explained that he was extremely concerned by the postings on Facebook, living in fear because he anticipated violence. This affected his relationship with his disabled child, who was concerned about being seen in the company of CG.
Mr. Justice Stephens held that CG had an expectation of privacy concerning his criminal convictions, the sentencing, and his personal information or information about his family. However, the expectation of privacy had to be balanced against the right to freedom of expression for Facebook and Mr. McCloskey.
In concluding, Mr. Justice Stephens held that the actions of Mr. McCloskey:
[...] incited violence and hatred. It was indiscriminate and led to the potential for public order situations to develop. It was an attempt to hunt a sex offender, to drive him from his home and to expose him to vilification. All of the content of the profile/page [...] in relation to CG was oppressive and unreasonable and there was a course of conduct over a period of time which amounted to harassment of CG and which both [Facebook] and [Mr. McCloskey] knew or ought to have known amounted to harassment of him.
Mr. Justice Stephens found Mr. McCloskey liable for the misuse of private information and for harassment. However, no finding were made in respect of any breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 because no case was pleaded. However, Mr. Justice Stephens found that the failure of Facebook to delete the postings amounted to misuse of private information.
Mr. Justice Stephens granted CG the injunction preventing Mr. McCloskey from harassing him by any means. While Facebook was ordered to remove the "Keeping our Kids Safe From Predators 2" page. Finally, Mr. Justice Stephens awarded £15,000 in damages against Facebook and Mr. McCloskey for the postings by Mr. McCloskey, and £5,000 against Facebook for the postings by RS.
