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Last February, the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled vs a newspaper that published a report of a attempted murder-suicide, including photos from Facebook accounts of the killer and the victim. The victim sued paper for damages for including the FB photos without his consent.
The victim sued, claiming that the paper had interfered with his right to privacy and image. The Spanish court ruled that the posting by victim of photos on FB did not authorize their wider publication without consent of the owner, who was thus entitled to damages.
The Spanish court also held that publication of the photos was unnecessary, since they were not related to the criminal conduct that was subject of the article. The decision is in Spanish, clipped here is an English-language summary that is found here. https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/dario-v-la-opinion-de-zamora/
This ruling is arguably inconsistent with the PH Supreme Court's thinking on the matter, as expressed in Vivares v. STC, where the Court held that there generally is no reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to photos that one uploads on FB.
If this ruling were also adopted in the Philippines, it would alter the practice of several news outlets, which have assumed that photos publicly posted on social media were fair game for republication.
This ruling, if adopted here, would establish the social media user's right to sue for damages for unauthorized use of their photos, as well as a "relevance" test where the use of the photos would be assessed against their relevance to the story.
