Remove my photo from Facebook
Remove my photo from Facebook
"Someone posted my photograph on Facebook. Can I request that it be removed?"
Ana, Onex
In recent years, social networking sites have enjoyed dazzling success. Swiss legislation on the protection of personal rights is far from outdated, and its flexibility makes it possible to deal with this new phenomenon.
Personal rights, an essential attribute of the individual, are protected by the Swiss Civil Code. Anyone can take legal action to prevent an infringement, to put a stop to it or to establish that it is unlawful, provided that there is an infringement or risk of infringement and that the infringement is unlawful.
Along with honour, image rights seem to be one of the rights most threatened by social networks. An image can be defined as all the visual elements that make it possible to identify a person. The right to an image is affected in particular when the image is disseminated, i.e. made accessible to a third party. So when a user uploads a photograph to a network such as Facebook, they are infringing the image rights of the person depicted. It should also be noted that if the image disseminated relates to an intimate life or is unnecessarily offensive, the infringement of image rights is coupled with an infringement of privacy or honour.
Any infringement of personality rights is unlawful unless it is justified by law, by an overriding public or private interest or by the consent of the person affected. At present, there is no legal basis for such an infringement, and it would be difficult to demonstrate an overriding public or private interest in posting a photograph on a social network. As a result, only consent can be taken into account as a justification.
Consequently, if an offending Internet user publishes a photograph of you without your consent, you can bring an action to stop the infringement so that the photograph is removed. It would also be a good idea to ask the Court to issue an urgent injunction to stop the disturbance, in order to prevent the image from being widely disseminated as quickly as possible. You can take action against any person who makes the infringement possible, i.e. obviously the Internet user responsible for disseminating the image, but also Facebook or the hosting site. In addition, if you consider that you have suffered damage as a result of the infringement, you may bring an action for damages or compensation for non-material harm, provided that you can prove that one of the participants in the infringement intended to cause harm or was negligent.
