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Facebook photos used to deny insurance claim

Facebook photos used to deny insurance claim

GnomeQueen Jacqueline DiOrio 23 Nov, 2009 at 4:32pm ET Article published in Tech

facebook_logo_190px_Icrontic_v12Canadian resident Natalie Blanchard took a leave of absence from her job 18 months ago due to issues with major depression. Dependent upon her insurance company’s stipend for income, the company recently elected to stop disbursing payments due to photos uncovered on her Facebook profile.

The photos included Blanchard on a vacation and at a bar for her birthday. Blanchard states that her doctor recommended that she participate in activities that make her happy, and that she returned to the same state of depression after the events were over. Blanchard is also confused as to how Manulife, her insurance provider, got the photos, since her Facebook profile is set to private.

Blanchard’s lawyer states that the insurance company’s claims are preposterous, and that Facebook doesn’t seem like a very good tool for assessing someone’s mental health. Manulife has not submitted a comment on the matter, except to say that they would not base a decision upon one factor.

This case draws a number of issues into focus, such as whether or not a Facebook page can be used to judge a mental illness, and what right to privacy someone can expect to have on a private social media profile.

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Comments

  1. Butters
    23 Nov 2009 ~ 5:27pm Butters Well Hell. I'd be depressed too, if I worked for IBM....




    ..j/k Big Blue. I still love you. Your x-series servers are awesome!! (She was an IBM employee for those that didn't click on the link)
  2. photodude
    24 Nov 2009 ~ 1:08pm photodude Just goes to show people think that the internet is private and anonymous. Someday people might realize that anything posted to the internet is in the online world....and is ONLINE. privacy on the internet is limited at best. Some employers are gunning for reasons to dump low value employees or employees that present a risk to the company. I've heard of 911 employees who have pictures of them smoking weed on their myspace profile. people posting pictures that they are massively drunk the night before going to work. People claiming to be sick and posting status up dates that they are out shopping (later fired since the employer was a facebook friend and saw the conflicting message as the last straw).

    There is a number of low profile cases of social networking being the deciding factor in employee hiring and firing, as well as benefit denials.
  3. chrisWhite
    24 Nov 2009 ~ 5:44pm chrisWhite This is why I'm 100% open in my online presence, let's not pretend anything online is private regardless of how you think it's setup. Well, that and I there's always obscurity through shear quantity.
  4. ardichoke
    24 Nov 2009 ~ 9:54pm ardichoke While I totally agree that nothing posted online should be considered private, I also think this is completely bogus on the part of the insurance company. I've suffered bouts of depression in the past as well, it runs in my family, and I can tell you that yes, I did go out with people I knew during them from time to time. I went to bars sometimes as well. Participating in events like that doesn't mean you're not dealing with depression. In many cases going out like that helps depression. This is just another case of some greedy insurance company not wanting to pay out on a claim.

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