Question concerning legality of a privacy violation by police?

[Frick]

My girlfriend's school got police to log into her Facebook and they went through her messages. She has no warrants, or any suspensions, or anything like that, so they have no real legal reason to do this. I'm thinking this is illegal, because it's a massive violation of her privacy. She was not notified, It was her private messages, not public posts. I know legality varies by country, so this was Canada.

[q S]

... so they have no real legal reason to do this - this is something that you don't know
... I'm thinking this is illegal, - again you are only guessing
... it's a massive violation of her privacy - probably not

The police have to go through a variety of legal process which is approved by the courts prior to searching facebook.

You can read about the requirements facebook has before providing information to the police at this link: https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=211462112226850

You can read about facebook subpoena guidelines here: http://publicintelligence.net/facebook-l...na-guides/

It's probably best for you to not jump to conclusions or make false allegations against the police. Where are you getting this information from anyway? How do you know that the person giving you the details even knows all the facts?

Hope this helps

[Starlord]

I am sure you can produce proof that the school got the police to go into her facebook page? I have news for you, I am not familiar with Canadian law, but if you want to discuss American constitutional protections, you are not going to find privacy anywhere. You are talking about a facebook account. When you get a facebook account, people can go to their page any time. It is not private, but she has given blanket permission for anyone to sign in to it. Information gleaned from the internet is not often useful to the police because of its anonymous nature.

[bw022]

The police can not log on to someone else's Facebook account and read their messages. They require a user name and password, same as anyone else. They would have to get the password either from Facebook (with a court issued search warrant), her, or the have found it on the computer with the permission of the owner -- presumably her parents. As such, it was almost certainly legally obtained.

They obviously had a legal reason to do this. Someone told them what was on her Facebook account. The police have better things to do than driving to some random person's house, asking their parents if they can access their kids computer, and then searching through billions of Facebook posts. Obviously she either showed or told someone about her Facebook posts and someone then told the school, who then called the police. The information must have been pretty illegal and specific for all three groups to act. Most likely, the police knew exactly what they were looking for.

Also, if your girlfriend is under 18 and living a home, her parents can consent to anything. The police don't require permission of a minor when their parents agree to the search.

Finally, in Canada illegally obtained evidence (not that this was) is usually still admissible in court - baring entrapment and clear miscarriages of justice. The police (or those who obtained the evidence) may be subject to certain legal penalties, but the evidence once discovered is admissible. If the police have a search warrant, break down the wrong door, and find a pile of drugs... you're still going to jail.