• hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    21·
    2 days ago

    Not sure where you live, and I don’t know much about US law, but for me, it’s §203 and §206 StGB. Get’s you either fined, or up to a maximum of 1 or 5 years in jail. And especially §206 is super clear and specifically mentions electronic letters. I can assure you, I’m 100% correct on that.

    • ltxrtquq@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html

      If this is an accurate translation of the laws, 203 is about doctors, lawyers, government officials, etc. sharing priveledged information they had access to because of their jobs and 206 only applies to owners/employees of telecommunications or delivery services.

      Edit: and to go one step further, Section 201: Violation of Privacy of Spoken Word means you can’t record phone calls without everyone’s permission, but Section 202: Violation of Privacy of Correspondence is about opening other people’s letters.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        Uh, yes. I messed up the numbers. It’s §201 for audio recordings, §201a for private pictures, §202 for documents and letters with added paragraphs for “data” and electronic data and §206 specific for communication. Idk why I wrote §203, that’s for officials and doctors as you said. I meant §202. But yeah, the translation seems pretty accurate. Thanks for the link, I didn’t know we had that available. 😊
        I included §206 since that’s likely what an admin is concerned with. And we mixed that in earlier in the argument. But I believe that paragraph is just a specialized and more harsh version of §202, to increase the maximum penalty from 1 year to 5 years, if it’s your job to handle other people’s communication. Which might apply to Fediverse admins, but it’ll fall back to the other paragraph anyway.

        And by the way, there are some interesting quirks baked into those paragraphs. For example the one with pictures and videos is a lot more specific than the one with audio. So we get cases where it’s okay to record a video, but it has to be without sound.

        • ltxrtquq@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago

          Again, 202 is about opening other people’s mail/messages, with the electronic subsection being about accessing their digital messages when you aren’t supposed to. And section 206 wouldn’t apply to Drag at all, since they aren’t even an admin. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing legally wrong with sharing “private” messages that are sent to you.

          • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            Uh, I’m getting confused by this lengthy discussion with that many sideshows. Now I get it. You’re perfectly right with that. What happened in this case by the user is not really(*) covered by those paragraphs. This is about “Persönlichkeitsrecht” (personal/privacy rights), maybe including a sideshow with copyright. But this is way more nuanced and requires looking at the details. People have a right not to be doxxed or their secrets or private stuff being publicised. But as you said, there isn’t a general rule to prohibit sharing documents itself, without fail (like we have for audio recordings). With written text, a court needs to look at the actual content and see whether that’s protected or private in some way. Because privacy is protected in itself, and in that case it’s not about the form of a document.

            Edit: And to add to this: I think §201a still applies. Someones Inbox or DMs count as a private/protected space. Now if you take screenshots from that, that’s an “other images”. And the fifth subsection says these can’t be shared with a third party.

    • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      It depends on the state. My state is a one party state, meaning any person that is party to a private conversation can legally reveal everything in it to the public.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        Yeah, I figured we’d need to track the criminal down to a specific contry and state and then ask a lawyer to make sure. We’re super strict here. If someone uses the voice recorder app or takes a video with sound in a private conversation, that’s already a serious thing. Of course similar restrictions apply to phone calls, letters and electronic conversation.

        Reading US law isn’t easy for me, I mean there’s always a lot involved and then there are laws on two or three levels plus exemptions and additional rules… I wonder if such a freedom in a one party state applies to people like whistleblowers and other unruly people as well…

        • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          On paper, whistleblowers have federal protection from prosecution. In reality, however, if you blow the whistle on a rich person, a corporation, or the government, the government will go out of its way to punish you and make an example. See Edward Snowden, who is still wanted by the government, despite having revealed the government was engaged in what was then highly illegal espionage against their own citizens. The government responded by making that invasion of privacy legal.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
          11·
          2 days ago

          Of course similar restrictions apply to phone calls, letters and electronic conversation.

          I am sure US mega corps are complying and the law is enforced against them

          • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            Not sure, I’ve never worked for an US mega corp. And those really don’t seem to like the law, or worker unions who start complaining and blow it up once someone gets mistreated/surveilled by their employer… Honestly, I’m not sure where we’re at, overall. I’ve read about both things happen, corporations getting sued / fined and getting away with exploiting their employees.

    • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
      5·
      2 days ago

      I’m from Canada and live in the UK. You’re allowed to, barring some very specific circumstances, record or repeat any conversation you are party to. If you were posting a DM convo that your friend was having, taking pictures of their screen while they were out of the room and then putting it online. You’re fucked. If you are an active participant of a conversation/DM chain then as party to said communication you have the legal right to tell anyone, record it for reporting to the news, or the cops, or your gf.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        The internet seems to suggest it’s illegal in the UK, for example to share recorded phone calls. According to the first page of Google, recording itself is fine, while sharing or making them public isn’t. But I haven’t looked up the specifics.