UK: Junior sues her old firm for hacking ‘intimate’ WhatsApp messages

The UK Law Society Gazette reports

junior solicitor has been given the green light to make a claim against her former firm over the hacking of her private WhatsApp account.

The unnamed solicitor had lost an employment tribunal claim for sexual harassment and unfair dismissal after making 79 allegations against her former employer ranging from inappropriate remarks to sexual touching. She had been sacked in December 2017 after falsifying a timesheet.

The tribunal had stated that the woman’s own WhatsApp messages, used in evidence against her, had ‘played a large part in our findings’ and either undermined her credibility or demonstrated that the conduct of which she complained was consensual or not ‘unwanted’.

During a hearing last month, the High Court heard that the woman now brings a claim for misuse of private information. There were some 18,000 messages occupying 900 pages of the tribunal’s bundle, which included a complete log of messages to her partner (now husband) and best female friend. These were disclosed in two tranches as part of the defence to the tribunal claim. Some of the messages and images which she shared with her partner ‘were of the most intimate kind’, the court heard.

WhatsApp icon on phone

Source: iStock

The claimant’s case is that the managing and sole equity partner of her firm hacked into her messages by setting up a computer-based ‘WhatsApp Web’ and using her smartphone to scan the QR code generated. He was thereby able to capture the entirety of her available messages.

The managing partner, who is also unnamed, explained that a ‘substantial quantity’ of messages were found on the solicitor’s work laptop when he examined it to establish why she was attempting to log in after being dismissed. These messages were printed out and retained, following which they were deleted from the laptop. He added that two further tranches of messages had been received through letters from an anonymous source.

In FKJ v RVT & Ors, Master Davison was asked to rule on an application to strike out the solicitor’s claim and grant summary judgment on the firm’s counterclaim for abuse of process.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/junior-sues-her-old-firm-for-hacking-intimate-whatsapp-messages/5114744.article?utm_source=gazette_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Raab+faces+judicial+review+%7c+Junior+sues+old+firm+for+hacking+WhatsApp+%7c+Family+Mediation+Week_01%2f11%2f2023