Since messaging apps are widely used, can screenshots be used as evidence in Court? The interesting Philippine case of Cadajas vs. People (2021) sheds light on how the Supreme Court and the lower courts ruled over the issue.
The issue of child pornography issue (Cadajas asked the minor to send pictures of her private parts) is a given, and we all agree that it is grave and punishable by law. There is also the issue of “grooming” because Cadajas was 24 y/o while the girl was 14 y/o when the incident occurred.
The controversial aspect is the privacy side. Cadajas claimed that there was an invasion of his privacy because of a plot twist: the mother of the victim forced her daughter to log in using Cadajas’ account (user and password) to screenshot the conversations that were used in the filing of cases against him. Why? The victim deleted her conversation from her account out of fear of her mom.
However, the Supreme Court was consistent and sided with the earlier rulings of the lower courts. In the end, the case of Cadajas vs. People is undoubtedly a big step for the development of cybercrime, evidence, and data privacy handling and regulation. It also serves as a warning for predators and cybercriminals that the law in the Philippines has teeth and is enforced for everyone. #pinedacybersecurity #securityawareness #dataprivacy
