There is very little that can be done to stop somebody from setting up a fake site on social media such as Facebook. When it does happen, it can be difficult to have it taken down and even more difficult to undo the damage that may have been done to an individual or organization and their reputation. What steps should the Social Media site take to pro-actively try to assist in undoing any damage? This is the question that arose for a teenaged girl and her mother and this is the issue that the Federal Privacy Commissioner addressed in a recent finding.
The facts may be all too common. Somebody created a Facebook account in the name of a teenaged girl. She did not have a Facebook account, but the imposter befriended a number of the girls school mates and proceeded to make inappropriate comments about them. They, of course, thought that the girl was making them.
The girls' mother contacted Facebook and managed to have it delete the account and all of the associated content, including the comments that the imposter had been making. The mother also wanted Facebook to contact the girl's schoolmates who had been befriended by the imposter to let them know about the deception.
Facebook refused. It claimed that it would not be appropriate or practical. It did not want to intervene in personal relations between individuals.
The mother complained to the Privacy Commissioner. The Commissioner cited Principle 4.9.5 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act which reads as follows:
When an individual successfully demonstrates the inaccuracy or incompleteness of personal information, the organization shall amend the information as required. Depending upon the nature of the information challenged, amendment involves the correction, deletion, or addition of information. Where appropriate, the amended information shall be transmitted to third parties having access to the information in question.
The Commissioner was, "persuaded that in these circumstances, it would be inappropriate for Facebook to notify individuals "friended" by the imposter of the deception as it could potentially re-stigmatize the victim." However, the Commissioner was concerned about the ongoing consequences, both reputational and emotional, that can stem from these types of situations.
Accordingly, while she agreed with Facebook's position in this case, she convinced it to take a case by case approach to future situations. In cases of impersonation of non-users, it agreed to "examine and investigate on a case-by-case basis matters of alleged impersonation that are brought to the site administrator's attention where the victim of an alleged impersonation requests a particular kind of assistance. Such assistance could include Facebook facilitating a process whereby non-users could themselves notify others who had been friended by an imposter account."
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