
Grandmother ordered to delete Facebook photos under GDPR - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52758787
======
bosswipe
Good! I don't post photos of my kids on the internet and I get so annoyed when
other people take it upon themselves to post them for me. Clearview AI has
made it even more clear than it already was that any data you give these
companies can and will be used against you.

~~~
TeMPOraL
My wife and I have the same opinion. So far, both sides of our family are
complying to our wishes, except that one or two times my in-laws managed to
put our kid in a Facebook story by accident - apparently the Messenger app is
confusing enough that they don't even realize when it happens.

~~~
sneak
The trick is to ban visitor smartphones and not to have an account, which is
the only way to actually disable Messenger.

~~~
ryanmcdonough
Which world are you living in where banning visitors having their phones is a
reasonable thing to happen?

~~~
cuddlybacon
I think it is an over-reaction problems that stem from the fact there aren't
established cell-phone norms yet.

Some people expect immediate replies to their text messages. This is a big
problem with current teens, where their parents will demand this from them.
But even some adults do this with other adults. Some people adapt to this by
learning they need to respond to every message asap or else! Other people are
more willing to treat phone messaging as something that is strictly
asynchronous. I think most people are between these two extremes and vary on a
case by case basis.

There also isn't consistent norms with how much phone use is acceptable in
front of other people. Some tolerate nearly none (see the person you responded
to). Some tolerate use motivated by the social situation (eg you look up
something directly related to a conversation). Some tolerate only responding
to VIPs (spouse, children). Some tolerate any kind of use as long as it isn't
too much (I perceive this to be the most common, but it is also the vaguest).
Some tolerate unlimited use (I've seen entire tables of people together at a
restaurant on their phones the entire time).

One aspect that I find... disappointing is that an individual person's
position on the first issue may not be compatible with the second issue. I
know some people who would both demand only social motivated phone use when
with others, but also demand immediate responses to their messages. To me
these seem fundamentally incompatible.

There also doesn't seem to be a social custom of replying that you are with
others and won't be particularly responsive for a while.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _One aspect that I find... disappointing is that an individual person 's
> position on the first issue may not be compatible with the second issue._

The worst version of it that I've experienced is a person who unilaterally
decides to grant themselves unrestricted use of the phone, while
simultaneously demanding I stick to minimum/social-situation use only. This
assymetry annoys the hell out of me, and I've had some heated arguments about
it. I don't mind if someone is glued to their phone, but I expect to be
treated no worse than the person expects to be treated themselves.

------
advisedwang
Why isn't this between the mother and Facebook? Surely Facebook has some
responsibility for posts on their platform. That also seems like a much more
scalable as it can be part of flagging process.

~~~
kube-system
Facebook really isn't in the business of intermediating domestic (or legal)
disagreements.

~~~
koheripbal
hun? They aren't an intermediary. The pictures are posted on Facebook. They
are the primary. It doesn't matter who uploaded them to Facebook.

~~~
andrewxdiamond
Facebook is not in a position (and shouldn't need to be) to determine who has
what rights to what images. They deferred to the governing bodies on this
issue, and the courts decided that the parents had the right to demand the
photo(s) are taken down. The parents could presumably now go to FB with this
ruling and have them take the photos down.

If FB did not defer to another party, they would have to determine if the
accusing party has the legal grounds to demand the pictures are removed.

How would FB know that those are the parent's kids? Or that the parents have
custody? Or any other nuanced edge case?

It's best for everyone if FB defers to the bodies that defined these laws for
judgement. Otherwise, you'll end up in a system like YouTube where copyright
protections are easily abused against small organizations that can't fight
back.

~~~
boomboomsubban
In the US, Facebook legally has to remove a picture of a child under thirteen
if requested by a legal guardian. The sole proof required seems to be a check
box confirming under threat of perjury that you are their legal guardian. And
until your eighteen they have to take down any photos of yourself.

The only abuse case I can imagine would be online bullying, there's little
financial incentive like in your YouTube example. And for Facebook, refusing a
legitimate act could carry fines while deleting a pic involves little risk.

~~~
andrewxdiamond
There is a big difference between "refusing a legal act" and refusing to act
on unverified information. If it was a GDPR complaint, it should go through
the GDPR courts. That's how the system is designed.

Deleting a user's picture incorrectly is absolutely a problem. You now have an
avenue for malicious actors to effectively DDOS users by removing all of their
photographs with these GDPR requests

~~~
boomboomsubban
>You now have an avenue for malicious actors to effectively DDOS users by
removing all of their photographs with these GDPR requests

My entire post was just detailing the US system already in place, where they
have the powers you described. These malicious actors could only target people
under the age of thirteen, there would be little incentive to do such except
bullying, and the culprit would like face punishment.

I would hate to see it happen to any child personally, but from Facebook's
position there is no risk to them taking it down while leaving the picture up
could carry a $40,000 fine.

~~~
andrewxdiamond
How does Facebook know how old people are in pictures? I mean they invest a
lot of time and money into AI, but I don't think they're there yet

~~~
boomboomsubban
By their Facebook account, it's the persons current age that matters. I don't
know what they do if they don't have one, but I doubt many people without
accounts would be targeted for an attack.

~~~
andrewxdiamond
Ah yes. The most accurate and impossible to forge form of identification, the
Facebook page

~~~
boomboomsubban
The account asking for the removal being tagged (having their listed dependent
tagged,) in a bunch of pictures they want removed gives a pretty good hint.

This system has existed for all of Facebook's history, and doesn't seem to he
a huge source of problems. It's abusable, but it takes a decent amount of
work, the risk is rather high, and there is no payoff for abusing it. No
matter how little we like the system, it functions fine

------
awinter-py
this despite granny's TOS clause clearly granting perpetual likeness rights in
exchange for periodic babysitting

------
Tomte
I'm not surprised. Parents have ultimate authority over things affecting their
children.

If Mom says no, why should Grandma be allowed to publically(!) post photos,
for the whole world to see?

Edit: keep in mind that at least in my country you need permission from the
person depicted when publishing a photo of him (with exceptions for important
events, important people and so on).

And parents act in stead of the child, legally. When the parents say "no",
legally the child has said no.

~~~
gpm
Forget all the family drama for a second, the headline is then

> Person A ordered to remove pictures of person B from facebook.

That's legal? That's not a blatant free speech issue?

(This isn't to say Grandma isn't being an asshole by posting them, but
generally you have a right to be an asshole)

Edit: I just want to say I'm pretty happy with the discussion this post
generated :) Also, it's been bouncing around from -4 to 0 points repeatedly.

~~~
Tomte
In my opinion, there is no free speech issue. But I realize that American
customs and jurisprudence see free speech in a vastly more expanded way.

In Europe we generally don't. In Germany we certainly don't.

We have a doctrine of "practical concordance" where all basic rights limit
each other and have to be weighed such that all basic rights achieve maximal
effect. In a way we're looking for a global maximum, not a local "free speech
trumps personal rights" solution.

And on another note: I always find it rich when Americans complain about that.
America specifically forged our constitution that way. Free speech was not
very important post-war, when de-nazification called for banning books,
closing all newspapers, licensing newspapers by publishers who were
politically "right".

You got that right back then, I'm not complaining about that. But if you had
wanted full American Free Speech in Germany, you could have implemented it
with a stroke of a pen. Don't blame us now.

~~~
moron4hire
I don't think anyone in this thread was involved in the construction of the
German constitution.

People are allowed to have opinions in opposition to that of the sitting
government, including ones that sat well before we were even born.

~~~
Barrin92
>People are allowed to have opinions in opposition to that of the sitting
government, including ones that sat well before we were even born.

Yes, but they need to justify them. Disregarding tradition goes both ways. You
can't brush off the German conception of the law and then just go "well that's
censorship bro", which is honestly 90% of the discourse on HN on these issues.

The notion of a 'concordance of legal values' is highly intuitive. There's a
very strong case to be made that laws are not sacred, that they serve the
public good, and thus ought to be balanced. It's the free speech absolutism
that is purely an artefact of American culture, practised virtually nowhere
else to this degree.

------
aaron695
And the thing that matters isn't mentioned by BBC?

Was it a public post or private?

BBC doesn't even seem to understand the issue at hand.

Public/The court didn't know - [http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/05/privacy-
rights-and-soci...](http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/05/privacy-rights-and-
social-media-can.html?m=1)

~~~
rootlocus
First, facebook can stil datamine that photo even if it's not public. Second,
if it were private, gradma would still be sharing it with people outside the
control of the parents (what if gradma was dating a pedophile?). Third, gradma
could've easily changed them to public any time.

~~~
aaron695
> First, facebook can stil datamine that photo even if it's not public.

This is not relevant to the article, why can't we just talk about the article.
There are plenty of other articles on HN about privacy within applications.

The court specifically mentioned the 'general public'

"The court acknowledged that "it cannot be excluded" that placing a picture on
a Facebook or Pinterest page might be exempted from GDPR scrutiny on the basis
of this provision, but held that it had not been established that A's pages
were inaccessible to the general public."

When you publish on Twitter or Facebook publicly you are no different to a
newspaper, you are publishing to the public record.

The BBC clearly doesn't get this, which I assume means a lot of the general
public doesn't either with such lousy media.

------
savrajsingh
How can I explore photos that people I've blocked have uploaded, and get
facebook to remove them? Seems like that should be possible.

~~~
sokoloff
> How can I explore photos that people I've blocked have uploaded, and get
> facebook to remove them?

Why do you think you should have the right to review the photos that other
people uploaded, whether or not you've blocked them?

~~~
savrajsingh
Oh, I would restrict to photos I’m in

------
subhro
Good. I hope people do not feel I am being overtly critical, but deleting the
photos mean nothing. Once something is posted on the internet, especially
Facebook, it can not be un-posted. At least, that is what my understanding is.

~~~
lgl
You're not wrong in the sense that things get cached, mirrored, scraped, etc,
and probably live forever inside Facebook's datacenters even when "removed",
but there is still a valid case for not wanting the pictures posted on a
public profile for all eternity.

~~~
joshspankit
This is exactly the point: it being in FB’s “big pile of everything they’ve
ever seen“ is entirely different than it being publicly available.

And therefore there _is_ a purpose to having it taken down.

------
crazygringo
Does this mean that, broadly, under GDPR if _anyone_ in _any_ photo you've
ever taken and put on social media complains, you have to take it down?

Or is this because the subjects are minors? Or some other technicality, like
whether or not the photos were taken in a public place or similar?

~~~
aphextron
>"Does this mean that, broadly, under GDPR if anyone in any photo you've ever
taken and put on social media complains, you have to take it down?"

We can only hope. No one has the right to post a picture of me on the internet
anywhere ever for any reason.

~~~
koboll
This is silly. You don't retain any claims on images just because they include
you. Extrapolating this idea leads to absurd conclusions.

If I take a photo of a crowd at an NBA game and publish it in a book of NBA
photos, should any member of that crowd be able to force the publisher to stop
selling the book until they've removed the photo? If not, why should it work
differently on the internet?

~~~
xphilter
Not to be a stickler, but if you’re at an NBA game you contractually agree to
allow that photo to be taken and displayed (under US law). Obviously it’d be
different under EU law though.

~~~
closeparen
GDPR consent cannot be a condition of accessing the service. It also has to be
revocable.

~~~
kube-system
Does anyone know how EU sports handle this? Do they blur faces of people in
the crowd on request?

~~~
xphilter
It would be a terrible solution if they did that I hope they don’t). I imagine
they have specified what the legal basis is for collecting and using the
photos and have an exemption outlined for when they receive a deletion
request.

------
wjnc
The verdict [1, Dutch] is somewhat less interesting than it seems since it was
a summary proceedings with both lawyers (and the judge) not really versed in
GDPR and due to covid quite limited interaction.

The grandmother could have argued legitimate interest (she is a grandmother
and took care of one of the children) and have demonstrated limited visibility
(now there was no mention of posting publically or not, so the judge went with
publically) and the case would have started to get interesting.

Now it was just a slam dunk. No permission, no argument for use case under
GDPR, done.

[1]
[https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:...](https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2020:2521)

~~~
lmkg
What specific Legitimate Interest necessitates processing of personal data in
this particular case? Taking care of the children? If there's a way that she
can reasonably accomplish that without posting to Facebook, then it's not
covered by Legitimate Interest.

~~~
koheripbal
She doesn't have to argue that the utility exists for some practical purpose
like babysitting - she would only need to argue that the pictures were taken
by her, and that she uses them personally to look at the images of her
grandchildren for her own personal happiness (which has utility).

~~~
M2Ys4U
The Legitimate Interests basis for processing personal data is a qualified
one, though:

>processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued
by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are
overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data
subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the
data subject is a child.

So where there is any doubt one must test the idea that the data subject's
rights outweigh one's legitimate interests.

------
awillen
The headline of this is so clickbaity in making it sound like some little old
grandma posted pictures of her vacation and big evil government made her
remove them.

She posted pictures of grandchildren against their mother's wishes. She's just
being selfish, and the fact that she's a grandmother isn't really germane to
anything.

~~~
kedean
The description of the defendant as "a grandma" is definitely meant to get you
on a particular side of the story before even reading it.

~~~
mellosouls
She's not called "a grandma" which is folksy and so you would be correct.

She's referred to as "grandmother" to indicate the relationship which is
relevant to the story and the presumable toxicity of the situation.

------
jrockway
> 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

Does that mean you can just write a check to not be covered by the GDPR?

~~~
owenmarshall
Yes, but you’d better have a big checkbook: willful violations of the GDPR
scale up to 4% or €20m of annual global revenue - whichever is _higher_.

~~~
ciarannolan
What's grandma's global revenue?

~~~
azernik
In most cases, less than €500M.

------
mellosouls
Am I the only person to think that even _parents_ should not be able to post -
for anything other than a transient period (maybe not even that) - photos of
kids in a _public_ web space?

It has always seemed obnoxious to me, the choice being made on somebody else's
behalf to consign their privacy to the dustbin for eternity through this
method.

~~~
azernik
Social and legal norms give parents _astonishingly_ broad powers over their
children's lives; this is indeed an important decision, but not any _more_
important than the other things parents can decide uni-/bi-laterally.

------
jimmaswell
Who took the pictures? In a sane legal system it would boil down purely to who
owns the copyright, barring an exceptional circumstance like revealing medical
information. This privacy stuff has gone to absurd extremes. Soon it will be
illegal to say someone's name without written permission over there. What a
crazy legal landscape Europe is.

~~~
aaomidi
What on earth are you on.

My picture is mine. Not the person who took the picture.

I hate family members who think they're somehow entitled to me and my body and
my face. Like no. I will be the person deciding what I'm comfortable with.

~~~
gnicholas
So do you just have a problem with people posting photos of you on social
media, or even just having photos with you in them for their own memories? It
seems like your critique would apply equally to both.

~~~
rootlocus
Do you go around projecting your memories on a public display accessible to
anyone, any system, any algorithm, any time, possibly forever?

~~~
andromeduck
Not personally but some people do and it's their right to do so. It's basic
right of expression.

