Is it legal for a high school official to gain access to a students Facebook account?

[Lexi Adkins]

My nephew's high school gained access to his account and gathered information that was not neccassary to dermine his explosion.
He was expelled for fighting and we're not trying to fight it, he deserves it.
However, it just bothered us knowing the school did it. I graduated from there a couple years ago.
Do they have the power and is it legal?
Thank you

[Southpolee]

Believe it or its legal, but only if a crime has been commited. Fighting is a crime

[Jan409]

Facebook is a public forum, so anyone can look for anyone
and there is nothing illegal in accessing a public forum

UK

[Mark]

Not the school but the police can if he's posted something of concern. The school could look at his account through friends if they shared it with school admin.

[Edgar]

Apparently so. Yet another reason to be very careful about one's social media communications - they can be a minefield of one's own creation.

-------

'Fighting is a crime.'

lol

[A]

no its not illegal, high school, secondary school have the power to access your facebook, if requested by the police that he has been involved in something bad, it happened in my school years ago, and 8 guys were kicked out of school... over facebook

[tonalc2]

Different state courts have come up with different rulings. No state info, no question info.

[Randy]

The police need a warrant but others do not.

[Heretic]

Personalize your security codes and don't give it to no one.

[Clive]

Certainly not legal in the UK. This is an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.