Spreading Private Message

To whom it may concern, good evening. Here's my case:

I am a teacher in a public school. i have this workmate whom i am not comfortable working with because we have conflicts about each other's personal issues. She treats me the same way too. I accidentally left my facebook account logged in in our school's computer which gave her a chance to scan my private messages, maybe hoping to find evidences and proof that I am talking something against her to everyone in my inbox. Then, she did. She "screenshotted" our entire conversation with my "groupmates in a groupchat" and that includes our rude private conversation against her and our principal.. she sent the screenshot photos of our conversation to our principal via messenger that made her (principal) angry to death. The next day, our principal called a faculty meeting (actually not a meeting) but she flashed our screenshot conversation through multimedia projector and revealed everything to the entire faculty members of our school, including those who have no idea about the issue, and thosw who are not involved knew everything about that private message. Our principal humiliated me (us)and kept discussing it to the group.

Now, I would like to ask some sort of legal advice about this issue, because they want to take legal action against me about the things i said behind their back through a private conversation with my colleagues. Thank you.

You should hire a lawyer immediately in order for you to seek proper legal advice regarding the matter.

Offhand, it is truly unfortunate that you left your account logged in your school computer. That complicates things, because this is not an act of hacking as contemplated by our cybercrime law. It is possible that they can use these screenshots against you in court, since they acquired it legally because of your negligence.

Maybe you should try reconciling with your principal and other co-teachers by sincerely apologizing to them for the words you said, in order to avoid litigation. I know this is a longshot, but avoiding litigation is the best way to solve this matter.

Thank you for the advice. But I would like to make it clear that those private messages was hidden and they intentionally scanned the inbox until they found out those messages. They did not saw the messages accidentally but they intentionally scanned my private messages out of my logged in account?

I personally do not think that matters, but maybe other lawyers will see it differently. Take note, I am not a lawyer yet, so it is still best to seek advice from a real lawyer well-versed in criminal law.

The point here is that there was no illegal access into your account SINCE YOU HAVE LEFT IT OPEN by negligence. It is also difficult to prove the specific parties that scanned your messages, since there are many co-workers who could have done the same.

Maybe you can file a civil suit for damages, but the other party may do the same since they have evidence of your badmouthing the administrator of your workplace. Try talking to a lawyer specializing in civil law and see if you have enough evidence in filing the case for damages.

Good luck.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Good luck on your case.

Godspeed!