Writ of Habeas Data

Question 1

Define the Writ of Habeas Data

Answer 1

It is a remedy available to any person whose right to privacy in life, liberty or security is violated or threatened by an unlawful act or omission of a public official or employee, or of a private individual or entity engaged in the gathering, collecting or storing of data or information regarding the person, family, home and correspondence of the aggrieved party. (Sec. 1, A. M. No. 08-1-16-SC, The Rule on the Writ of Habeas Data)

Question 2

What is the purpose of the Writ of Habeas Data?

Answer 2

The writ of habeas data is an independent and summary remedy designed to protect the image, privacy, honor, information, and freedom of information of an individual, and to provide a forum to enforce one’s right to the truth and to informational privacy

Question 3

Mayor Marynette Gamboa was included in a government report listing politicians coddling private armies. The PNP supposedly leaked this report to the media, who then made it public. Is Gamboa entitled to a writ of habeas data?

Answer 3

A: NO. Gamboa was unable to prove through substantial evidence that her inclusion in the list of individuals maintaining PAGs made her and her supporters susceptible to harassment and to increased police surveillance.

Question 4

Ilagan applied for a Writ of Habeas Data in the RTC to compel Lee to return the memory card and enjoin her from reproducing and distributing the sex video. Should the writ be issued?

Answer 4

A: No. Ilagan was not able to sufficiently allege that his right to privacy in life, liberty or security was or would be violated through the supposed reproduction and threatened dissemination of the subject sex video.

While Ilagan purports a privacy interest in the suppression of this video — which he fears would somehow find its way to Quiapo or be uploaded in the internet for public consumption — he failed to explain the connection between such interest and any violation of his right to life, liberty or security.

As the rules and existing jurisprudence on the matter evoke, alleging and eventually proving the nexus between one’s privacy right to the cogent rights to life, liberty or security are crucial in habeas data cases, so much so that a failure on either account certainly renders a habeas data petition dismissible, as in this case. (Lee v. Ilagan, G.R. No. 203254, 08 Oct. 2014)

Question 5

Q: Two (2) students of STC in Cebu City posted pictures of themselves on their Facebook page wearing only their undergarments. Their classmates showed the Facebook page to their teacher and the two (2) erring students were administratively sanctioned.

The subject students questioned the penalty imposed upon them on the ground that the retrieval of the photos from their Facebook page was a violation of their right to privacy. Are the students correct? Is there a right to privacy on Facebook and other online social media (OSN)?

Answer 5

A: NO. Before one can have an expectation of privacy in his or her OSN activity, it is first necessary that said user manifest the intention to keep certain posts private, through the employment of measures to prevent access thereto or to limit its visibility.

And this intention can materialize in cyberspace through the utilization of the OSN’s privacy tools. In other words, utilization of these privacy tools is the manifestation, in cyber world, of the user’s invocation of his or her right to informational privacy.

Considering that the default setting for Facebook posts is “Public,” it can be surmised that the photographs in question were viewable to everyone on Facebook, absent any proof that petitioners’ children positively limited the disclosure of the photograph.

A person who places a photograph on the Internet precisely intends to forsake and renounce all privacy rights to such imagery, particularly under circumstances such as here, where the Defendant did not employ protective measures or devices that would have controlled access to the Web page or the photograph itself.

That the photos are viewable by “friends only” does not necessarily bolster the petitioners’ contention. In this regard, the cyber community is agreed that the digital images under this setting still remain to be outside the confines of the zones of privacy in view of the following:

1. Facebook “allows the world to be more open and connected by giving its users the tools to interact and share in any conceivable way;”
2. A good number of Facebook users “befriend” other users who are total strangers;
3. The sheer number of “Friends” one user has, usually by the hundreds; and
4. A user’s Facebook friend can “share” the former’s post, or “tag” others who are not Facebook friends with the former, despite its being visible only to his or her own Facebook friends.

(Vivares v. St. Theresa’s College, G.R. No. 202666, 29 Sept. 2014