Communication privacy laws Italy
Protecting the privacy of minors also involves separated parents. One of the 2 parents may not publish pictures of their child online without the consent of the other. This was established by a recent court ruling in Mantua, which ordered a mother to remove photos of her children from Facebook. The judge referred to article 10 of the Italian Civil Code on image protection, Italian Legislative Decree no. 196 of 2003 on the protection of personal data, the New York Convention, ratified by Italy in 1991, and the protection of minors under the EU Regulation of 2016.
Children’s rights and privacy
The protection of minors is enshrined in the Italian Constitution in articles 2 and 31, paragraph 2, and in specific civil and criminal laws. The International Convention on the Rights of the Child was approved by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989. It was then ratified in Italy with Law no. 176 of 27 May 1991 and establishes that in all acts relating to minors, the best interests of the child must be considered to be paramount. No child may be subject to arbitrary or unlawful interference that harms his or her private life, family, home, honour or reputation. Every child, therefore, has the right to be protected by law against such interference or harmful practices. In addition, the EU protects privacy also through the NEW REGULATION ON PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION
Communication privacy laws in Italy
The Italian Privacy Authority has taken an iron stance on minors. The protection of children immortalized in a photo must be respected not only in cases of their involvement in crime news, but also in any area of daily life, including private life, and therefore parents too must follow these rules.
Photos of minors published only with the consent of parents
For the Communication privacy laws in Italy, The Privacy Protection Act provides that photographs of minors may be published only with the consent of both parents or guardians.
The protection of minors is more important than parents’ wishes
In cases of separated parents where the exercise of parental responsibility is shared, the law favours child protection in any case. A separated parent may not publish photos of a minor child without the consent of the former spouse, not even on their Facebook account.
The case in Austria A daughter requires parents to take down her photos from Facebook
The protection of minors and the use of images also extends to parents. In Austria, an 18-year-old girl filed a complaint against her parents because they don’t want to take down 500 pictures published on Facebook, which depict her as a minor in intimate poses. As her lawyer, Michael Rami, explained, the girl filed a complaint against her parents. The court will hand down its ruling on the matter in a few weeks (read here). The protection of a child extends beyond the presumption of tacit consent of cohabiting parents, if one of the two requires it. There is no abusive or punitive intent of the law towards parents. There is only the stringent need to protect children from those who speculate by using online photographs for illicit purposes, such as online child pornography.
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