A COURT in Galicia has ruled that it is legal and acceptable for a parent to read his or her child's WhatsApp messages where the son or daughter is a minor.
A mother from the province of Pontevedra who shares custody of her nine-year-old daughter with the girl's father, her ex-husband, had filed a case against him after he read her messages and 'attempted to do so' with the child's older brother, who is also a minor, but who refused to give his dad his mobile phone PIN code.
The mother considered this a violation of privacy, but the court of first instance threw out the case and said no criminal offence had been committed.
She appealed to Pontevedra Provincial Court, which has ruled that the father's checking his children's WhatsApp messages was part of his duty to protect and educate them and bring them up.
He is said to have sat down with the little girl in her room to go through her messages with her and, did not, as the mother claimed, 'take her phone without her consent'.
The court said a child's social media chats do not qualify as 'sensitive', 'confidential' or 'intimate' data in the context of their being accessed by that child's parents.
Her mother has been ordered to pay the costs of the court case.
