On July 12, 2018, the German federal court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) overturned the judgment of the Berlin’s highest state court (Kammergerichts), which had denied the parents’ access to their daughter’s Facebook account.
The case involved a mother trying to access the deceased 15-year-old daughter’s Facebook account in order to understand the cause of death.
With its judgment the BGH entitles the heirs to whatever is left on the web by the decedent. As a contract, the user agreement between Facebook and the deceased passes to the heirs by operation of law according to section 1922(1) 1 of the German Civil Code.
Up until this point, there were only three possibilities for a decedent’s Facebook account: 1) Deletion of the account if the deceased left instructions to delete it; 2) Appointment by the account’s holder of a legacy contact to look after the memorialized account after her death and to take decision regarding the account; 3) lacking the first or the second, the profile would simply remain on the web.
No more so in Germany: as a consequence of this decision, upon the death of the account holder’s his or her social media accounts pass to their heirs (unless a clear declaration of the decent to that effect)
Here is more information on how to choose a Facebook legacy contact https://www.facebook.com…
More on the BGH judgement is available at here and also at http://www.spiegel.de… ( in German)
For more information about how privacy is implemented in Europe, contact Francesca Giannoni-Crystal & Federica Romanelli.