Ask HN: Someone posted an my passport on Facebook. Anything I can do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Someone posted an my passport on Facebook. Anything I can do?

53 pointsanm8918 comments

I found out that about a week ago, a real estate company whom I previously was a tennant of, has posted the full front page of my passport including address, dob, passport number and address along with a picture in a private facebook group.

I flagged the post, but it's still up, I submitted a help request to FB's sensitive information page but they denied it, I think maybe because that line was more targeted towards nude selfies being posted for revenge.

Is there anything I can do to get this taken down? I have a feeling FB has some support line hidden somehwwhere but they make it impossible to find anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I feel like I'm being set up for identity theft here.

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If the real estate company put it up then they can take it down too. Have a lawyer write them a nice C&D on letterhead complete with a notice that any damages as a result of their action will be reclaimed and I suspect it will be gone before you can blink.

I've upvoted this after dhimes alerted me to your post, I don't know anybody at Facebook but I suspect that if you mail legal@facebook.com that you'll get at least a rise out of them. Since the group is private I would hope that the damage at least is limited.

best of luck!

thank you for posting the legal link! That is atleast some route to pursue, and the only one that I know of.

Unfortunately I'm in Colombia now and this is a Colombian company. I don't perceive that I have any great legal options and don't have any connections to lawyers down here but I'm looking into it.

Anyway thanks again.

Send a complaint to your local district attorney with the company CC'd. You should also consider making a formal police complaint (this would be around identity fraud/theft). This wasn't something accidental, but intentional.

Jesus lol that's horrible. Keep making noise about it. Make an anonymous twitter account and try to get it retweeted a lot. This is apparently how customer service is done less than 24 days to the year 2020

It seriously unbelievable that someone can do this and there is nothing you can do besides hit a button that says "Report" but there is not even a field to say what you are reporting. Unbelievably frustrating.

We are accelerating towards a very dangerous time. While there is probably a lot of shady things that someone can do with a copy of your passport, I would rest assured that there is a very small chance something bad will happen to you.

Most of the information contained on a passport is already publicly searchable anyway :(((

FB is showing their true colors as always here though, removing things that shouldn't be removed and not removing things that should be removed.

I know, the only thing in the back of my mind that makes me less nervous is well, this is probably only the nth time this year that my private information has been leaked onto the internet. And the others would have been explicitly to dump the data for identity theft in a corporate breach.

So unfortunately it might not even matter.

Still super frustrating that after everything they've been trough, fb does not have a meaningful way to report abuse.

The most burning question I have is, why on earth would the company do this?

They are trying to get money out of me. Their was a legitimate claim between them and I regarding some minor damage to the property and I paid them in full for that damage which I took full responsibility for upfront. I could provide proof of the issue and the payment for damages in private.

They are now trying to accuse me of other severe damage on the property that did not occur during my stay and milk extra money on me and using this as leverage.

Regardless of all of that, posting my passport scan to a public forum is not appropriate and is against facebook's terms of service and there should be a way to get it removed.

I am still super confused. They posted your personal information on Facebook and said to you "we will take this down if you pay us." This makes no sense. Your passport has already been put out on the internet. Even if the post from Facebook was removed the damage has already been done. They don't really have any leverage here.

Is there an equivalent to "small claims court" in Colombia where you don't need a lawyer if you're willing to do your own research? Maybe threaten to take them to that court for disclosing private information without permission, and also for libel if they accompanied the photo with untruthful badmouthing. And then take them to that court if they ignore you? IANAL though, and I know nothing about what's legal or not in Colombia.

One other thing you can try is get more people to report that post. Maybe there's a threshold at which they will look into this more seriously.

That is awful. Hope that FB steps up and fixes this.

Are you or the publisher located in the EU? If so, consider bringing legal action against the publisher under GDPR and send a article 17 request for erasure to Facebook. GDPR covers this publication since it was made by the company.

I’m not able write a longer answer right now but leave a comment or reach out to me on mail@danielk.se and I can give an in-depth answer. IANAL but have successfully brought a GDPR case to trial.

Unfortunately I'm in Colombia at the moment and this is a Colombian country. So I feel like my avenues for help are limited to facebook support.

I see, I wish you the best of luck!

You could try a DMCA complaint.

Wow, this is an enormous WTF. What reason could they possibly have had for posting this?

Maybe not the opinion you’re looking for but based on the info you gave I personally wouldn’t sweat over it and just move on and try to forget about it after some basic due deligence. People have this idea that ski mask hackers are hiding around every corner waiting for you to give up some special piece of information. I am of the belief that what happens online has almost no ramifications to an actual balanced human life. I do not value or respect my online identity or information. Those that do are just stressing over boogie men imho. /rant

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