KILUSANG MAYO UNO v.

DIRECTOR-GENERAL NEDA
487 SCRA 623

FACTS:

EO 420, issued by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on 13 April 2005, required all

government agencies and government-owned and controlled corporations to streamline
and harmonize their Identification (ID) systems. Under said EO, all government agencies
and government-owned and controlled corporations were ordered to adopt a uniform data
collection and format for their existing identification (ID) systems. Herein petitioners,
sought to enjoin the Director-General from implementing the said EO alleging that it is
unconstitutional because it constitutes usurpation of legislative functions by the executive
branch of the government and infringes on the citizen’s right to privacy. Thus, filing these
two consolidated petitions for certiorari, prohibition, and mandamus under Rule 65 of the
Rules of Court, seeking the nullification of Executive Order No. 420 (EO 420).

ISSUE: Whether EO 420 infringed on the citizen’s right to privacy?

RULING: No.

All these years, the GSIS, SSS, LTO, Philhealth and other government entities have been
issuing ID cards in the performance of their governmental functions. There have been no
complaints from citizens that the ID cards of these government entities violate their right to
privacy. There have also been no complaints of abuse by these government entities in the
collection and recording of personal identification data.

Petitioners have not shown how EO 420 will violate their right to privacy. Petitioners
cannot show such violation by a mere facial examination of EO 420 because EO 420
narrowly draws the data collection, recording and exhibition while prescribing
comprehensive safeguards. Ople v. Torres18 is not authority to hold that EO 420 violates
the right to privacy because in that case the assailed executive issuance, broadly drawn and
devoid of safeguards, was annulled solely on the ground that the subject matter required
legislation. As then Associate Justice, now Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban noted in his
concurring opinion in Ople v. Torres, "The voting is decisive only on the need for
appropriate legislation, and it is only on this ground that the petition is granted by this
Court."

EO 420 applies only to government entities that already maintain ID systems and issue ID
cards pursuant to their regular functions under existing laws. EO 420 does not grant such
government entities any power that they do not already possess under existing laws. In
contrast, the assailed executive issuance in Ople v. Torres sought to establish a "National
Computerized Identification Reference System," a national ID system that did not exist
prior to the assailed executive issuance. Obviously, a national ID card system requires
legislation because it creates a new national data collection and card issuance system
where none existed before.
In the present case, EO 420 does not establish a national ID system but makes the existing
sectoral card systems of government entities like GSIS, SSS, Philhealth and LTO less costly,
more efficient, reliable and user-friendly to the public. Hence, EO 420 is a proper subject of
executive issuance under the President’s constitutional power of control over government
entities in the Executive department, as well as under the President’s constitutional duty to
ensure that laws are faithfully executed.

VIVARES v. ST. THERESA’S COLLEGE

737 SCRA 92

FACTS:

Julia and Julienne, both minors, were graduating high school students at St. Theresa’s
College (STC), Cebu City. Sometime in January 2012, while changing into their swimsuits
for a beach party they were about to attend, Julia and Julienne, along with several others,
took digital pictures of themselves clad only in their undergarments. These pictures were
then uploaded by Angela on her Facebook profile.

At STC, Mylene Escudero, a computer teacher at STC’s high school department, learned
from her students that some seniors at STC posted pictures online, depicting themselves
from the waist up, dressed only in brassieres. Escudero then asked her students if they
knew who the girls in the photos are. In turn, they readily identified Julia and Julienne,
among others.

Using STC’s computers, Escudero’s students logged in to their respective personal

Facebook accounts and showed her photos of the identified students, which include: (a)
Julia and Julienne drinking hard liquor and smoking cigarettes inside a bar; and (b) Julia
and Julienne along the streets of Cebu wearing articles of clothing that show virtually the
entirety of their black brassieres.

Also, Escudero’s students claimed that there were times when access to or the availability
of the identified students’ photos was not confined to the girls’ Facebook friends, but were,
in fact, viewable by any Facebook user.

Investigation ensued. Then Julia, Julienne and other students involved were barred from
joining the commencement exercises.

Petitioners, who are the respective parents of the minors, filed a Petition for the Issuance of
a Writ of Habeas Data. RTC dismissed the petition for habeas data on the following
grounds:

1. Petitioners failed to prove the existence of an actual or threatened violation of the

minors’ right to privacy, one of the preconditions for the issuance of the writ of
habeas data.
2. The photos, having been uploaded on Facebook without restrictions as to who
may view them, lost their privacy in some way.
 3. STC gathered the photographs through legal means and for a legal purpose, that
is, the implementation of the school’s policies and rules on discipline.

ISSUE: Whether there was indeed an actual or threatened violation of the right to privacy
in the life, liberty, or security of the minors involved in this case? (Is there a right to
informational privacy in online social network activities of its users?)

RULING: No. STC did not violate petitioners’ daughters’ right to privacy.

The Supreme Court held that STC did not violate petitioners’ daughters’ right to privacy as
the subject digital photos were viewable either by the minors’ Facebook friends, or by the
public at large.

Without any evidence to corroborate the minors’ statement that the images were visible
only to the five of them, and without their challenging Escudero’s claim that the other
students were able to view the photos, their statements are, at best, self-serving, thus
deserving scant consideration.

It is well to note that not one of petitioners disputed Escudero’s sworn account that her
students, who are the minors’ Facebook “friends,” showed her the photos using their own
Facebook accounts. This only goes to show that no special means to be able to view the
allegedly private posts were ever resorted to by Escudero’s students, and that it is
reasonable to assume, therefore, that the photos were, in reality, viewable either by (1)
their Facebook friends, or (2) by the public at large.

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.

In sum, there can be no quibbling that the images in question, or to be more precise, the
photos of minor students scantily clad, are personal in nature, likely to affect, if
indiscriminately circulated, the reputation of the minors enrolled in a conservative
institution. However, the records are bereft of any evidence, other than bare assertions that
they utilized Facebook’s privacy settings to make the photos visible only to them or to a
select few. Without proof that they placed the photographs subject of this case within the
ambit of their protected zone of privacy, they cannot now insist that they have an
expectation of privacy with respect to the photographs in question.

Had it been proved that the access tothe pictures posted were limited to the original
uploader, through the "Me Only" privacy setting, or that the user’s contact list has been
screened to limit access to a select few, through the "Custom" setting, the result may have
been different, for in such instances, the intention to limit access to the particular post,
instead of being broadcasted to the public at large or all the user’s friends en masse,
becomes more manifest and palpable.