is it illegal for a principle to view a students facebook account?

[Lilly S]

ok heres the deal, my sister had a facebook account and all she wrote was that a teacher that taught her was stupid. So her principle seen her account idk how because all her things account and etc...was blocked only friends could see.He seen it and got her in shit. Any ideas on how he might have seen and is it illegal for him to have access to her profile?

thanks <3

[Moops]

If her stuff was blocked, how was he able to see it? He wouldn't have been able to unless he...possibly made a fake account and was randomly requesting students to be friends? Which seems really creepy and weird, and I doubt that was the issue. Maybe someone on her friends list was offended by her comment and said something to him instead? That seems more likely.

[Nick the Gemini]

You sound like a retarded blonde lol "Is it illegal" lmao

No it's not illegal it's on the web and thus anyone who knows how to access it can access it.

[Danf2]

It is not illegal to read publicly available information. You say she had her profile set to private but how many friends does she have on her facebook? It only takes one snitch or person who has a personal vendetta against her to email the principal.

Again, I feel the need to make this perfectly clear. It is not a crime for a member of a school to read information online. Nor is it illegal for them to have a student "snitch" information from within the social networking site to them.

[dancingdog777]

Hows this for a sensible reply. You set up an account and write up all your private thoughts then display them where anyone can read them. That's what Facebook does!

[Jude]

Okaay!!
It Is NOT Illegal!! Because If You Had The Time To Read The Whole Privacy Settings For Facebook, They Tell You That They Give Some Of Your Personal Information To Third Parties!!
But That Is Not The Issue Here, Because Many Schools In My Country Do That, Where Teachers, Principles And These People Tend To Check Students Profiles, How?
As One Person Above Said!! Either Fake Account And Your Sister Has Accepted!!
Or A Student Shows The Teachers And Principle What Is Written On Facebook, Which I Mean Giving Them The Access To Students Profiles!!
xD

[cen]

It would be illegal for this individual to view the information if he or she was not authorised to view it *and* he or she took measures to gain access to it. For example, if the data were in a password protected directory and he or she took measures to circumvent the requirement of entering the proper credentials (eg. social manipulation or technical measures), he or she would be in the wrong.

If he or she was not authorised to view the information but, due to a technical problem or human error on the part of the maintainer of the information it was *unavoidable* for this individual to view the information (ie. an utter accident, no effort was taken on the part of the unauthorised individual to view it; he or she viewed it entirely by accident and without actually intending to view it), then it is defendable for the individual to have viewed it since he or she couldn't have helped it.

It's comparable to when a police officer arrests someone without a warrant for illegal possession of a controlled substance if the substance was in *plain view*. For example, if you are pulled over for exceeding the speed limit and you have some illegal narcotics spread out all over your lap, it's fine for the police officer to charge you with possession of the controlled substance since you made no effort to hide it. Likewise, if you make no effort to hide the information, even if you don't authorise someone to view it, if someone does view it unintentionally, you don't have much recourse since it was in plain sight and it was unavoidable that someone would see it.

In this case, if Facebook wrote somewhere in the terms of service of the product your sister was using that the information will be inaccessible to people who are not on a user-configured "whitelist", as it were yet the staff at Facebook somehow screwed up and served the page to an unauthorised person, it's not the unauthorised individual's fault; it's Facebook's fault since they violated the clause in their TOS.

Of course, I don't know Facebook TOS nor do I know what service(s) your sister was trying to use, so I really have no way of saying anything conclusive. You can say something conclusive about it though (or at least your sister can) since she presumably knew what services() she was using as well as the TOS of the service(s).

EDIT: And yes, obviously if there was no prior agreement between the user and Facebook about authorised parties to view the information, then it's every bit as legal for this individual to read the information as it would be for him or her to read the newspaper, a bus schedule or a STOP sign.