Teen sues parents for posting embarrassing childhood pictures on Facebook

An 18-year-old Austrian woman is suing her parents for posting embarrassing photos of her on Facebook without her consent.

The woman claims her parents have, since 2009, shared over 500 “embarrassing and intimate” pictures on the site with their 700 Facebook friends which have “made her life a misery”.

"They knew no shame or limits. Whether I was sitting on the potty or naked in my crib, my every step was recorded photographically and, afterwards, made public,” the unnamed teenager told Austrian magazine Die ganze Woche.

The woman’s father, from the Carinthia region, sees no reason to delete the images and believes the pictures belong to him because he took them.

“I see it as my right to publish these pictures,” said the also unnamed man to the magazine. “After all it’s our children and, for my wife and myself, it’s a nice family album that goes down well with our Facebook friends". 

The teen’s lawyer Michael Rami is confident, however, his client will be successful when the case is heard in November, reports The Local.

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This is the first such case to be tried in Austria, but the outcomes of similar trials in Europe points to possible financial compensation for the woman if she can prove the shared images violated her right to a personal life.

France and Germany have tightened their online privacy laws in recent years and often urge parents to avoid sharing pictures of their children on social media.

In both countries, it is possible for children to sue their parents for sharing pictures of them online without their permission. In Germany, children as young as 14 can hold their parents accountable for intruding on their privacy.