Face the facts - Your online persona could be legally recognised

26 March 2010

Karen Cole looks at how Facebook is now being used as method of service.

Social networking sites have continued to grow in popularity. Facebook now boasts more than 100 million users who can keep in touch with friends and family by simply logging onto the web. However, few would consider that their Facebook account potentially offers lawyers a new means with which to notify them they are being sued.

The Australian Court has ruled that service of a judgment could take place via Facebook and a couple who defaulted on their mortgage therefore learned via the web that their mortgage company, MKM Capital Property Limited, would be repossessing their home. MKM's lawyer discovered the woman's page which contained details such as her date of birth and listed her partner (the co-defendant) as one of her 'friends'. He was therefore able to convince the court that she was the person in question. In granting permission, the judge ordered that service was to take place by way of a personal message as opposed to a post that the public could view on the woman's page.

The New Zealand High Court followed Australia's lead and ruled that substituted service could be made on an overseas defendant via Facebook where newspaper advertising (usually used in circumstances where the defendant's general but not exact location is known) could not be sufficiently targeted. There was evidence that the defendant corresponded via email and regularly used Facebook.  

Decisions in the courts of Australia and New Zealand can be persuasive in England as a result of the similarities between the laws of the Commonweath jurisdictions. It may therefore be only a matter of time before similar methods of service are permitted by the English Court.

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