Court: Mom can inherit dead child’s Facebook

GERMANY’S top court ruled yesterday that Facebook should grant a grieving mother access to her dead daughter’s account, in a landmark judgement for how social network data is treated after its owners pass away.

Judges at the Federal Constitutional Court found that the daughter’s contract with Facebook was part of her legacy and should be passed on to the mother, giving her full access to the daughter’s account including her posts and private messages.

“The contract covering a user account with a social network is transferred to the heirs of the original owner of the account,” the Karlsruhe-based court ruled.

Those heirs “have a claim on the network operator for access to the account including communications data,” the ruling continued.

The mother has battled Facebook through a years-long series of appeals after her 15year-old daughter was killed by an underground train in 2012.

The plaintiff hopes the data will shed light on whether the death was an accident or a suicide.

As well as offering emotional closure, court documents show, the information could clear up whether the train driver is owed compensation — as he might be if the daughter did kill herself.

A Facebook spokesman said the firm had “a different position” from the court, adding that “the question of how we balance the wishes of relatives and protecting the privacy of third parties is among the most difficult that we face.”

It was not immediately clear whether or how the social network might adjust its processes in case of a user’s death in response to the judgement.