What legal implications does being the administrator of a WhatsApp group have?
Although they seem very distant, the digital world is not so different from real life as we think. The Internet and new technologies keep us connected at a distance, and it is in that distance that many take refuge to act differently than they would in person, face to face, without knowing that your actions may be just as illegal. Creating a WhatsApp group in which to gather friends, family or work colleagues is a very common gesture that we give little importance to. However, this activity can go awry and turn into a nightmare if there are insults involved or disclosure of personal data, among other crimes. Discover what WhatsApp Web hides among its options to get the most out of it on your PC. Take advantage of the tricks that you can easily find and that we tell you in this guide. We wanted to know if creating a group chat on WhatsApp or other messaging applications iimplies some kind of legal responsibility and how we should act in case of crime within the conversation. To do this, we have consulted two lawyers who are experts in new technologies. WhatsApp groups have gone in recent years from being a communication tool within a personal and private sphere to being used in companies, groups of parents in schools, even among businessmen and clients. Being an administrator of a chat means being subject to the same rules as in any area of life he clarifies. Ignacio Gonzlez Gugel, lawyer and founding partner of dPG Legal. These applications, however private they are, cannot be used to commit crimes such as threats or violate peoples privacy. Now that WhatsApp is going through a bad time, you may be considering using other applications. Faced with any type of crime, be it insults, revealing personal data of other participants or third parties, or sharing child pornography, all group participants have the same obligation to report it, explains us Javier Franch Fleta, lawyer co-founder of TeBorramos, a company that helps eliminate negative content from the internet. However, administrators have the ability to manage the conversation. They can decide who enters or leaves the group, even preventing one person from sending more messages. This gives them more power and also more responsibility. The administrator cannot carry out a preventive attitude, but he can control and execute the measures to prevent it from happening again, explains Ignacio Gonzlez. Even so, majority responsibility, Javier Franch reminds us, would be from the person who is sharing that information which can be harmful to third parties. Franch emphasizes that not all participants are equally active, some are even oblivious and never find out what is happening in the WhatsApp group. There are two ways by which a person can be reported for their attitude in these applications. One is the civil route in which cases such as threats or insults are dealt with and may end up forcing that person to compensate the injured person. On the other hand, there is the criminal procedure in which, depending on the crime, the maximum penalty may be imprisonment, for example, for crimes of terrorism or prostitution. In recent years, the main complaints related to these groups responded to the data protection of users who complained of having been added without your consent to a group. As a result, the applications have launched security functions to block any unknown user from joining a group that we do not want. Cases such as that of local councils or companies that created groups to inform neighbors or clients without realizing that they thus made their personal data public. However, in addition to not including anyone without their permission in a group, care must also be taken with what is shared in them and for this, administrators have a key role. In addition to creating the group and inviting participants, administrators have a series of functions with which to manage that group and put some order. There are not many, but there are enough to not allow some conflicts to recur. They can:  Expel to one of the participants. Appoint other administrators with whom to share that position. Choose who can send messages Within the group. Choose who can edit group information, such as the icon, name or activate the function of temporary messages. In WhatsApp these options that you see in the image above are entering the information of the group that you have created and entering the Group Settings section. These functions are very similar to those allowed by Telegram and other applications in which large groups have become popular where even there may be 200 members. Administrators can even delete other peoples messages and remove us so that no participant can see it. Faced with this type of situation, as we have seen before, the participants and administrators have the duty to report any criminal behavior that is committed within the chat. Whether or not we are affected by this behavior, we have a number of resources at our fingertips. Shield chat groups  To begin with, WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal give their users options to prevent strangers or people we dont trust from adding us to a group chat without our consent. These functions have reached applications in recent years, Javier Franch reminds us that if we do not use them it would be necessary to have a signed document or a recording in which the other person gives us their consent to add it to the chat, something impractical for something as trivial as WhatsApp. Cybersecurity experts recommend applying these functions and knowing all the options offered by the app that we use to configure it in the safest way. In WhatsApp, for example, we should establish that no one can include us in a group without our consent, even if they are trusted people. In this way, if a chat begins to acquire a tone that we do not like and we want to leave, that person will not be able to force us to return. Nor will they include us in groups of strangers where they try to sell us something. Make a report and present evidence  Second, we can consider reporting any crime to the police or asking for help from a lawyer if we are dealing with a civil case. Ignacio Gonzlez adds that if the operator that controls the chats has a complaints box (something that should become popular in the future if the legislation is modified), the pertinent complaint will have to be put in the aforementioned mailbox and always keep a record of it . In this case, WhatsApp allows you to report contacts or groups in case there has been any kind of conflict. Entering the chat information, at the bottom of the page and indicated in red are the options to Leave the group and Report group. When you report a contact or group, WhatsApp receives the most recent messages you received from that user, as well as information about their recent interactions, the application explains on its support page. If that contact or group has violated the conditions of use of the application, WhatsApp reserves the right to suspend the account. Other applications such as Telegram also allow you to report other people in case of spam. To provide evidence in these legal proceedings, the use of screenshots has become popular. However, it must be remembered that these captures should only be provided as evidence in a complaint and not published on social networks with the data of those people. If you can recognize the other participants in the captures, by name, photo or other information, we will be committing a crime of disclosure of personal data. Captures are the best known resource for providing evidence of a crime committed in conversation, but they cannot be treated in any way. Javier Fanch tells us that Not only do you have to make the capture, you also have to go to the mobile phone where you identify who (the offender) is in case the court or the general bodies of the State had to investigate and ask the telephone company where this illegal comment comes from. The captures by themselves are not worth, they can be manipulated and considered as false evidence, it is important to validate their authenticity: if tomorrow, that reaches a judicial process, you have to compare those screenshots with the corresponding telephone, it is that is to say, the day that person is going to testify in court, check in situ, in front of the judge, that those photos were taken, that they came from a mobile phone and the specific date where they were taken.  We could also validate them in a notarial act, this lawyer advises us. Either way, both experts advise to consult a specialist with any questions or situation that we are experiencing to know how to proceed in each case and if what is happening in that application is reportable or not.