Maid in court for sharing photos on Facebook

Ehab Atta, Staff Reporter

The Fujairah Misdemeanours Court on Monday looked into a case in which a domestic worker was accused of cybercrime.

The defendant who worked for several years in her sponsor’s house faced the charge of sharing photos of her sponsor’s children of her Facebook account. She used to perform cleaning tasks at the house and taking care of the children, in addition to going out with them sometimes to market. No complaint was reported from the defendant along the years she worked for her sponsor

One day, the sponsor viewed the defendant’s Facebook account, where she was surprised by photo of her children shared on her page. The sponsor had no idea about the defendant’s act, as she did not ask her permission. Thus, she called the police and filing a complaint against the defendant. The latter was arrested and referred to the Public Prosecution, where she faced the charge of abusing privacy of others. She was then referred to the Court of Fujairah on the charge of committing cyber crime.

When asked by the court, the defendant admitted the charge against her and said that she did not mean to offend the sponsor’s privacy and that she shared the photos because she loved the children.

In another case, The Dubai Criminal Court heard Monday a case in which a government employee was charged with demanding and accepting a Dhs15,000 bribe to ease factory licensing.

According to the official records, the defendant abused the powers vested in him as a supervisor at the customer and employee assistance section for obstructing the issuance of the necessary licences for a factory by a competent government authority so that the applicant would be forced to give him a bribe. The defendant used to do this with the help of another person.

A third defendant testified that around six months before the incident, a licence for the company he worked for took a long time to be issued. He followed up the matter with the first defendant in charge of issuing licences, who used to promise him each time that the licence would be issued soon.