Facebook has reportedly settled an out-of-court case with an undisclosed amount to the father of a 11-year-old girl after he sued the social networking website for online abuse.
According to the Daily Mail, the 11-year-old girl’s father sued Facebook for failing to enforce the age restriction policy on the social networking site. The girl, he claims, was exposed to online sexual predators at the age of just 11. The man, who remained unnamed, has received an out-of-court undisclosed settlement from Facebook. The trial was due last week after four years of legal wrangles and was finally settled out-of-court.
The man stated that his 11-year-old daughter, who lives in Northern Ireland and referred to only as GS in the legal documents, managed to open an account on Facebook and uploaded sexual photos of herself. she further opened a series of new Facebook accounts to contact men. The accounts were later taken down by Facebook. However, the man’s family lawyer claimed that Facebook had a 'duty of care' towards the girl and was 'negligent' because it has no system in place to stop users from misrepresenting their ages.
The Sunday Times has managed to get their hand on the court documents, which mentions that 'By registering an account, and using Facebook, the child might be exposing herself to sexual predators or other grave risks affecting her emotional and physical health.'
The documents further mentioned that ‘'[Facebook] are obviously aware that children who should not be using Facebook are doing so by using the simple device of misrepresenting their age.'
The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) had warned against the perils of sexual predators targeting children online and called for social networking websites to enforce their age restrictions. The organization also stated that social networking websites have a duty to help protect young users from online sexual predators and also need to take serious responsibility with age verification.
It is noted that though Facebook has an age restriction of 13 years and above, there are many children below that age who have managed to open accounts. Sexual offenders are constantly crawling the internet and social networking websites, looking for vulnerable children and subsequent profiles. The consequences can be devastating.
Facebook is now also urging users to report anyone using their website that are aged under 13 years and is also guiding parents on how they can delete the said accounts. However, at present, there are no measures in place for enforcing age restrictions on Facebook.
A survey by KnowTheNet.com reveals that a staggering 52 per cent of children between the ages 8 and 16 admitted to ignoring the age restriction and almost 59 per cent of children have opened accounts by the age of 10.
Facebook should make sure they have a proper age-verification system in place by asking for details such as passport number, social security number, PAN card, Aadhaar card number, or other similarlegal and government documents. This verification process could curb the issue to an extent and also help reduce the number of online child abuse problems.
