World first: Australia’s legal system uses Facebook™
In what is considered to be a world first, the Australian Capital Territory - Supreme Court has determined that the social networking site, Facebook, is an acceptable medium for serving court documents.
“ ‘Facebook™ helps you to connect and share with the people in your life’… including lenders who want to repossess your house and the lawyers who want to enforce it. Employers and scammers are also regularly accessing Facebook details.”
The December 2008 landmark decision was delivered after lawyers from Canberra’s Meyer Vandenberg firm made numerous unsuccessful attempts to serve court notices to Gordon Poyser and Carmel Corbo. The couple had defaulted on a $154,000 loan and a judgement against them for the loan plus interest was made after they failed to turn up to court to defend the matter.
Mark MacCormack and Jason Oliver, lawyers at Meyer Vandenberg, had attempted to personally serve the documents on Poyser and Corbo by visiting both the home and work addresses of the individuals. The papers were also sent to their email addresses. Still unsuccessful, they made a special application to the Court to permit the documents being served on Poyser and Corbo through their Facebook accounts.
The case demonstrates just how easy it can be to access personal information about individuals over the internet. MacCormack entered Corbo and Poyser’s email addresses into the search options on Facebook and within thirty seconds was able to obtain and cross reference enough information about them to prove to the Court that the facebook pages were theirs. Once convinced that the identity of the individuals holding the Facebook accounts were the subjects of the judgement, the Judge - Master David Harper ruled that Court notices served on the Facebook site would be binding. The couple were given seven days from the date of service to respond before their home is repossessed.
See article: You’ve been poked – now you’re homeless. Lawyer serves repossession papers on Facebook:
Australian courts are increasingly allowing more modern forms of communication as the means by which legal documents can be served. Email is a currently used medium for service and earlier this year the Bulldogs Rugby League club served a subpoena on Sonny Bill Williams via SMS text message. He had left his club without notice to play in football in France.
Although such methods are slowly becoming acceptable, traditional means of service such as personal or postal delivery to a home address is still expected to be attempted.
Cyberspace Law Policy Centre director, David Vaile, on the issue of the Supreme Court’s decision and the risk of lost privacy, was stated as saying that “if people were shocked by the court decision, it was because the potential danger of Facebook pages had eluded them in the past”.
Facebook is now known to be frequently utilised by employers and other professionals as a means of obtaining information about current or prospective employees. Many Facebook users do not appear to appreciate that unless they make use of the privacy options on the site, they could be publishing their personal information to the world, potentially giving absolute strangers access to details such as a person’s name, date of birth, location, phone number, relationship status, education, political views and even day to day activities in almost real-time.
Recently, one facebook user was caught out by his employer for claiming paid sick leave when he didn’t have a genuine medical reason. It has been reported that AAPT employee, Kyle Doyle was asked by his employer to provide a medical certificate providing a valid reason for is sick leave. In response, Doyle stated that pursuant to his contract he did not have to provide a certificate if he was on leave for genuine medical reasons. After stating that his manager had no proof that his absence was not due to medical reasons, Doyle’s manager provided a snap shot of his Facebook page on the day he was absent, with Doyle’s status saying “Kyle Doyle is not going to work, f—k it I’m still trashed. SICKIE WOO!”
See article: Sickie faker busted by Facebook
Nigerian Scammers have also reportedly infiltrated Facebook, obtaining enough information from pages to enable them to pretend that they are the friend of a Facebook user who is stranded somewhere and needs money to get home.
See article: Cyber criminals target Facebook users
Whether or not users will become more prudent with the information they make available to the public remains to be seen, but the recent Supreme Court decision has, at the very least, shown that Facebook is much more than merely a social networking site.
