Using Facebook To Serve Lien Notices
I just ran across this article while doing some research, and it made me go, "Whoa!"...
"Australia OKs Facebook for serving lien notices"
"A court in Australia has approved the use of Facebook, a popular social networking Web site, to notify a couple that they lost their home after defaulting on a loan. The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court last Friday approved lawyer Mark McCormack's application to use Facebook to serve the legally binding documents after several failed attempts to contact the couple at the house and by e-mail."
This is really a scary decision. A lot of assumptions are being made, a couple of which include...
- That the Facebook account is for the actual couple. Anybody can create a Facebook account under someone else's name fairly easily.
- That, if the Facebook account is for the couple, they actually look at it on a regular basis. I know many people who have created a Facebook account and then visit it only sporadically.
Appears, though, that the couple caught wind of the plan to serve them in this way...
"McCormack, a lawyer for the lender the couple borrowed from, said that by the time he got the documents approved by the court late Tuesday for transmission, Facebook profiles for the couple had disappeared from public view. The page was apparently either closed or secured for privacy, following publicity about the court order."
Making legal decisions to use such means as an online social networking site, which may or may not be legitimate, is a pretty scary concept.
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Comments
Rebecca, as I understand this serving people on facebook, specifically in this case came about when the people were actively dodging the service of the notice. And just as soon as the court allowed the people to be served via facebook, they took down their facebook page. And at this point I kinda lost interest in the whole story. As for serving people in general via an online forum I think we must be careful, and have laws to protect people when the wrong person was served.
Posted by: Tkrabec | February 13, 2009 6:46 PM
It's funny what people will do to get out of a little legwork, isn't it? (The legal system, I mean, mostly)
What did they do in the old days - you know, before email.
It demands the questions:
- Why would you not try to authenticate the people you're serving notice to, when any significant doubts as to their identity could put the plaintiff's case in jeopardy?
- Why would you, as a lender, not try to authenticate and vet the people you're lending to more thoroughly? If you don't, this situation is going to become much more common, which will escalate the need to address my first question sooner. It's not a workable business or legal model, from what I can see.
Posted by: Scott Wright | February 14, 2009 12:34 PM
Thanks for your comments, Scott and Tim!
Scott, great questions and points.
It really worries me when judges, lawyers and lawmakers start making decisions to use technologies in ways such as this that involve no identity validation or any other real security consideration, and can...and have...been widely spoofed, used for phishing, etc. This creates a dangerous precedent, and now that it has been used to legally serve a lien, I can foresee a bunch more new phishing attempts to scam people using bogus lien servings, or related types of activities.
In this case it was probably a good thing the Facebook page was removed prior to the couple being served...hopefully the judge learned from this that serving a notice in this way is not a good idea.
I find the use of Web 2.0 technologies in general, by lawyers, law enforcement, investigators and others similar, very interesting and need to find some time to address this at more length. The issues are many.
Rebecca
Posted by: Rebecca | February 16, 2009 9:12 AM