At first instance, the respondent, J20, had been awarded £3,000 general damages for Facebook Ireland's misuse of private information. Facebook appealed. The action related to a series of posts from September 2013 on two Facebook pages, entitled ‘Irish blessings’ and ‘Belfast banter’, which had all been removed by October 2013 after an injunction had ordered their deletion. On appeal, Facebook challenged the findings that two comments which had referred to J20's children on ‘Irish blessings’ amounted to the tort of misuse of J20's private information. In particular, two posts had said, ‘He deleted his children off his fb page because their names are Catholic’ and ‘He has Catholic children who he doesn't bother with. Probably because they are Fenian’. J20 claimed that he should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to the religious affiliation of his adult children.

Morgan LCJ noted that it was not disputed that a person was entitled to have his or her reasonable expectation of privacy protected. However, the oldest of the children was 31, the respondent had not seen the children since 1997 or 1998 and the youngest was at least 16. There had been no evidence at first instance from the children themselves or about their circumstances. As to whether or not a person's religion was a private matter for the purpose of the alleged tortious conduct the court found that many religious people engage in regular acts of worship in the company of large numbers of worshippers of a similar persuasion. Where that is the case the publication of the fact that the person adheres to that religion would almost invariably not be private information. The court allowed Facebook's appeal in relation to the publication of the religion of the respondent's three children and reduced the award of damages from £3,000 to £500. [Frank Cranmer]