Court: Dead daughter’s parents have no right to access her Facebook account

Enlarge (credit: Ian Kennedy)

A German appeals court on Wednesday rejected the pleas from a dead girl's parents who wanted access to the 15-year-old's Facebook account. The social networking site fought the parents, claiming that opening the account would breach the privacy of the girl's contacts.

The parents want access to the account to help determine whether the girl, who was struck by a subway train in Berlin, had committed suicide. The family wants to review her chat messages and other account information in a bid to see if she was bullied, the BBC reported Wednesday

A lower court in Berlin had sided with the parents, ruling that the information "can be inherited regardless of their content." Facebook appealed the decision. The appellate court ruled that Facebook had entered into a contract with the girl, not the family, and that the contact cannot be inherited.

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