Grandmother ordered to delete Facebook photos of grandchildren Summary Our remarks A mother of three underage children sued her own • It is important to note that this is a very specific and mother (the grandmother of the children). She wanted individual interpretation, under a national GDPR the grandmother to remove pictures of the children related law, and that posting pictures of children on from Facebook and Pinterest as the grandmother had Facebook is not per se excluded from falling under not obtained consent from the mother to publish the the “household exemption”. photos. • In this particular case, the Court determined The Dutch GDPR Implementation Act stipulates that the grandmother’s act of posting pictures that posting photos of minors who have not turned of the children did not qualify for the “household 16 requires the consent of the children’s legal exemption”, as it could not be established that the representative. photos would not be accessible to third parties. Thus, the posting was covered by GDPR rules. If an In the case, the grandmother argued that the posting individual has a public profile and their pictures was not under the scope of the GDPR as the posting can be found via search engines such as Google, it fell under the “household exemption” that states suggests that user’s act of posting photos is subject that the GDPR does not apply to “purely personal” or to the GDPR. “household” processing of personal data. As one of the children had lived with the grandmother for seven years, the grandmother also argued that her special relationship with this child should allow her to post a picture of the child. The decision of the Court of First Instance of Gelderland • The Court ordered the grandmother to remove the pictures of the children on her Facebook and Pinterest accounts. • The grandmother was required to pay 50 EUR for each day she failed to comply with the judgement, up to a maximum of 1,000 EUR. Published: 13-05-2020, Journal number: C/05/368427 Tags: 07 Scope of the GDPR 29