Our Blogs

An American couple in the middle of a divorce have been directed to reveal their Facebook passwords to their spouse’s lawyers according to reports. The judge decided that the order was appropriate after having heard that one half of the divorcing couple, Stephen Gallion, had found a series of messages that his wife, Courtney, had sent to a Facebook friend within which she had discussed how she felt about the children and her ability to provide them with the level of care they required. Believing that these messages would assist Mr Gallion in obtaining custody of his children following the couple’s divorce, his lawyer, Gary Traystman, contacted Mrs Gallion’s representative and politely requested that she provide him with her password to the social networking site. Mrs Gallion, initially resisted the request, but, following legal advice, relented and provided Mr Traystman with her password, but also passed this information on to a friend, instructing her to delete the offending messages. Having been made aware of this, Mr Traystman contacted the court requesting that an injunction be issued to prevent Mrs Gallion from deleting any further messages and compel both spouses to provide the other’s representative with their login details. The application was heard on the 29th September and, following deliberation, the presiding judge declared that both Mr and Mrs Gallion were to comply with the order, though neither was to visit the others page and all relevant evidence was to be gathered by the parties’ representatives. Reactions to what is sure to become a landmark judgement have been mixed, some commentators claiming that this information should be disclosed in all divorce proceedings, others claiming that it constitutes an invasion of privacy and a clear breach of Facebook’s terms of service. What do you think? Please leave a comment.