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Karlsruhe (dpa) – In the future, it will be much easier for the heirs to see the communication of the deceased on the Internet. A judgment of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) on Thursday after years of uncertainty shows that even the personal content on the net as a Facebook account falls in principle to the heirs.
There is no reason to treat digital content differently from letters or diaries, said court president Ulrich Herrmann at the announcement in Karlsruhe. (Az III ZR 183/17)
The verdict has a mother, whose daughter late 2012 in Berlin before a subway crushes. Parents live in uncertainty until today, be it a suicide or a misfortune. They hope to find clues in private messages on the girl's Facebook page. The American company keeps the contents in an envelope – wrongly, as it is now established in the last instance.
Facebook had frozen the account after the death of the 15-year-old in the so-called memorial state. This happens automatically with all profiles, as long as the user has not set his page to delete. The parents had no influence on it. You have the pbadword but you can not login with.
Facebook rejects the publication of the contents of the account for years and justifies its attitude with the protection of personal exchanges on the network. The girl's friends might have thought that private messages on Facebook were private.
The judges of the BGH do not accept it. The sender of a message may believe that it goes to a specific user account, but not to a specific person, Herrmann said. The Senate also refuses to differentiate the content of the page according to their personality. This is not usually customary in inheritance law. The contract with Facebook on the death of the heirs.
The German Bar Association (DAV) welcomes the verdict. "Now there is legal certainty for heirs, even in the digital world," said President Ulrich Schellenberg, according to the announcement.
Difficulties have arisen because digital content such as e-mails, discussion papers and photos are rarely on a record at home with the deceased – like a letter box or diary. Most of the data is now on servers or computers on the Internet ("Cloud"). So, he has the vendor in hand, what he publishes to the heirs and what else. A clear legal regulation, as requested by the badociation of lawyers years ago, does not exist until today.
From the VED's point of view, the Supreme Court's ruling dispenses with such clarification. It makes sense, however, a regulation of the EU.
At first, it was not clear whether there could be digital content to which the decision could not be transferred. Stephanie Herzog, a lawyer and heritage specialist, told the broadcaster Phoenix that she thought nothing else would apply to email accounts or messaging services like WhatsApp rather than to anybody else. To Facebook.
For people who do not want heirs to see all Internet accounts, the verdict means that they have to settle in their lifetime, which should happen once with the content.
In the beginning, Facebook did not comment on how the company wants to react. "We will badyze the judgment carefully to badess the impact," said a spokesman.
The victim's parents told their lawyer that they hoped "that the company would give us immediate access to our daughter's account and not wait for us for more weeks, months or even weeks. years of tortuous waiting ".
Recently, the Berlin Court of Appeal confirmed in May 2017 the blocking of the Facebook account with reference to the secrecy of telecommunications. This verdict is annulled by the judgment of Karlsruhe.
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