03/02/2020 CG v Facebook Ireland Ltd & Anor [2016] NICA 54 (21 December 2016) [47] It is clear from the judge''s conclusion that he was particularly alert to the risks posed as a result of the identification of the respondent’'s address. It is common case that the posts on the second appellant’'s profile page at the time of the letter of claim included three comments referring to the general area in which the respondent apparently resided. It was an area in which many thousands of others resided. There was no identification of a property or a street. Whether an address or location is private information is likely to be highly fact sensitive. The area described in this instance was a diffuse residential part of a city. In order to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy the respondent had to show that the person publishing the information knew or ought to have known that there was a reasonable expectation that the information should have been kept private. [48] We accept that the publication of the address of the respondent in circumstances where he was subject to harassment and there was some threat to him if that address was revealed would constitute the disclosure of private information. The PPANI arrangements for his licence were also relevant in determining the extent to which such publication constituted intrusion. Mr White submitted that in this case the information was of such a general character that it was not information in respect of which there was a reasonable expectation of privacy. That may have been so if we were considering the information about location on its own but there were other factors in this case. [49] There was no evidence that the photograph of the appellant on McCloskey’'s profile page had been taken in circumstances where he had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The issue was whether in the context of this case the republication of that photograph disclosed private information. The context was the campaign of harassment conducted by McCloskey as found by the judge. The principle of open justice discussed above applied to the republication in a limited way since the photograph together with the information on his convictions identified him as an offender. The photograph together with the locality was directed to his address. The harassment context is in our opinion determinative. We doubt whether the republication of the photograph on its own would have constituted the publication of private information but in view of the campaign of harassment and threatened violence to the offender, the identification of the locality in which he was living, his name, photograph and the circumstances of the offending this was cumulatively information in respect of which the respondent had a reasonable expectation of privacy because of the risk that those who wished to do him harm could have established his whereabouts in order to do so. [50] Some six months after the Predators 2 page had been taken down RS uploaded a photograph of the respondent identifying him as a sex offender, his name and information on the general area in which he was living to RS’'s profile page. The page was shared 1622 times and attracted a number of threatening comments. Against a background of the identification of the respondent as a sex offender, the fact that RS had posted on Predators 2 details of the locality in which the respondent was living, the republication of the general area in which he was allegedly living, the previous history of harassment through the second appellant’'s profile page and the use of his photograph we consider that the trial judge was correct to conclude for broadly the same reasons set out above that the respondent enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy on the same basis. [51] That material was removed by taking down the main URL on 4 or 5 December 2013. On 23 December 2013 RS reposted a photograph of the respondent. There were two comments which indicated that this was what a “"Pedo”" looked like. There was no reference to an address, locality or the name of the respondent. There was no claim of any sort against RS in these proceedings. The principle of open justice protects the right of the citizen to communicate the decisions of the criminal justice system to others. This posting did no more than that and the respondent did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of it. The e-Commerce Directive and the 2002 Regulations [52] As discussed at paragraph [24] and [25] above there are particular provisions in the Directive and 2002 Regulations limiting the liability of an ISS provider for damages other than where it has actual knowledge of the unlawfulness of the publication or knowledge of facts and circumstances which make the unlawfulness transparent. In light of the acceptance by Facebook that the injunction was appropriate on the basis set out at paragraph [37] above the only issue in the appeal www.bailii.org/nie/cases/NICA/2016/54.html 11/21