Rhonda Ave Vivares & Sps Margarita and David Suzara v St.

Theresa’s College

Facts:

 Nenita Julia Daluz and Julienne Vida Suzara, both minors, were, during the period material,
graduating high school students at St. Theresa’s College (STC).
 Sometime in 2012 both of them along with several others took digital pictures of
themselves clad only in their undergarments/swimsuits and these were uploaded on
Facebook.
 Back at the school, Escudero, a computer teacher learned from her students that some
seniors posted pictures online dressed only in brassieres and some pictures showing that
seniors were drinking hard liquor and smoking cigarettes in a bar.
 Escudero then reported the matter and showed the photos to STC’s Discipline-in-Charge for
appropriate action and it was later found out that the students’ behavior were proscribed
by the school’s Student Handbook, to wit:
1. Possession of alcoholic drinks outside the school campus;
2. Engaging in immoral, indecent, obscene or lewd acts;
3. Smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages in public places;
4. Apparel that exposes the underwear;
5. Clothing that advocates unhealthy behaviour; depicts obscenity; contains sexually
suggestive messages, language or symbols; and
6. Posing and uploading pictures on the Internet that entail ample body exposure.
 The students were reported to the school Principal wherein it was reported that they were
castigated and verbally abused and the principal informed the parents that the students
were barred from joining the commencement exercises.
 The parents filed a Petition for Injunction before the RTC of Cebu City against STC and
prayed that respondents be enjoined from implementing the sanction.
 RTC issued TRO allowing the students to attend the graduation ceremony, but STC filed a
motion for reconsideration.
 Despite the TRO, STC, unbothered, continued to disallow the students from participating in
the graduation rites.
 Petitioner filed before the RTC a Petition for the Issuance of a Writ of Habeas Data on the
ground that they have violated their children’s right to privacy since the photos were
reproduced without their consent.
 RTC dismissed the petition for habeas data since they failed to prove the existence of an
actual or threatened violation of the minors’ right to privacy.

Issues:

1. Whether or not a writ of habeas data should be issued

2. Whether there was indeed an actual or threatened violation of the right to privacy in the life,
liberty, or security of the minors

Ruling:

 The writ of habeas data is a remedy available to any person whose right to privacy in life,
liberty or security is violated or threatened by an unlawful act or omission of a public
official or employee, or of a private individual or entity engaged in the gathering, collecting
or storing of data or information regarding the person, family, home and correspondence of
the aggrieved party.
 Availment of the writ requires the existence of a nexus between the right to privacy on the
one hand, and the right to life, liberty or security on the other. Thus, the existence of a
person's right to informational privacy and a showing, at least by substantial evidence, of an
actual or threatened violation of the right to privacy in life, liberty or security of the victim
are indispensable before the privilege of the writ may be extended.

Facebook’s Privacy Tools a response to the clamor for privacy in OSN activities

 Briefly, the purpose of an OSN is precisely to give users the ability to interact and to stay
connected to other members of the same or different social media platform through the
sharing of statuses, photos, videos, among others, depending on the services provided by
the site.
  It is akin to having a room filled with millions of personal bulletin boards or "walls," the
contents of which are under the control of each and every user.
 To address concerns about privacy, but without defeating its purpose, Facebook was armed
with different privacy tools designed to regulate the accessibility of a user's profile as well
as information uploaded by the user.
 In other words, Facebook extends its users an avenue to make the availability of their
Facebook activities reflect their choice as to "when and to what extent to disclose facts
about [themselves] — and to put others in the position of receiving such confidences."

STC did not violate petitioners’ daughets’ right to privacy

 It is through the availability of said privacy tools that many OSN users are said to have a
subjective expectation that only those to whom they grant access to their profile will view
the information they post or upload thereto.
 Before one can have an expectation of privacy in his or her OSN activity, it is first necessary
that said user, in this case the children of petitioners, manifest the intention to keep certain
posts private, through the employment of measures to prevent access thereto or to limit its
visibility.
 And this intention can materialize in cyberspace through the utilization of the OSN's privacy
tools. In other words, utilization of these privacy tools is the manifestation, in cyber world,
of the user's invocation of his or her right to informational privacy
 We must now determine the extent that the images in question were visible to other
Facebook users and whether the disclosure was confidential in nature.
 In other words, did the minors limit the disclosure of the photos such that the images were
kept within their zones of privacy?
 This determination is necessary in resolving the issue of whether the minors carved out a
zone of privacy when the photos were uploaded to Facebook so that the images will be
protected against unauthorized access and disclosure.
 In her affidavit, Escudero stated that the students showed her some pictures of girld clad in
brassieres. From this statement alone, the minors’ allegation that the photos were viewable
only by the five of them.
 Considering that the default setting for Facebook posts is "Public," it can be surmised that
the photographs in question were viewable to everyone on Facebook, absent any proof that
petitioners' children positively limited the disclosure of the photograph.
 If such were the case, they cannot invoke the protection attached to the right to
informational privacy.
 And even assuming that the photos in issue are visible only to the sanctioned students'
Facebook friends, respondent STC can hardly be taken to task for the perceived privacy
invasion since it was the minors' Facebook friends who showed the pictures to Tigol.
Respondents were mere recipients of what were posted.
 They did not resort to any unlawful means of gathering the information as it was voluntarily
given to them by persons who had legitimate access to the said posts.