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German court opens late daughter's Facebook to parents
Germany's highest court on Tuesday allowed the parents of a teenage girl who was crushed to death by a Berlin metro train in 2012 to directly access her Facebook account.
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A Facebook logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken on January 6, 2020. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)
G
ermany's highest court on Tuesday allowed the parents of a teenage girl who was crushed to death by a Berlin metro train in 2012 to directly access her Facebook account, their lawyer said.
The federal court of justice had in 2018 granted the parents limited access to the account to try to determine if the 15-year-old committed suicide.
Facebook had argued that granting access to the girl's data could infringe on the private content of other users of the network who had contact with her.
After the court's first ruling, the US tech giant handed over a USB drive containing 14,000 pages in PDF format.
The daughter's account had been put "In memory of" mode following her death, which allowed posts to be shared but did not enable her family to consult messages or photos.
As a result her parents went back to court to force Facebook to grant full access to the account.
Read also: After months of speculation, Facebook is starting to merge Instagram and Messenger chats
"The transfer of files on USB keys is just not enough," family lawyer Christlieb Klages tweeted.
"The heirs must be able to access the account in the same way as the account holder," Klages said, expressing "Joy!" after winning the case.
The growing question of digital inheritance raises complicated ethical and legal issues across different nations.
In 2016, Apple resisted FBI demands to unlock the iPhone of one of the two shooters in the San Bernardino terror attack the previous year in California.
However Apple did cooperate with an Italian father, also in 2016, who after his child died of cancer asked that an iPhone be unlocked to access photos and memories.
