No, private search calls are not permitted on the Internet!

wanted calls and missing person reports from a friend on Facebook and CO Or have you ever looked for someone privately? Then be careful! Creating or sharing such private search calls can quickly become criminal offenses or result in them.

Facebook users like to play detectives and are therefore on very thin ice. “The media does this too” - you hear that again and again. Many people independently publish and share wanted notices without checking whether they are actually current cases and whether they are acting legally at all! As a “private investigator” you are skating on very thin ice. Many users who privately request people to find a specific person, as well as the users who then share these requests, often do not know that such requests can make them liable to prosecution!

But what makes a private search call punishable? What are you allowed to do and what are you not allowed to do? We have a small list here!

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This is what you need to know about private search calls:

• Only law enforcement authorities are allowed to publicly search for people.
• Criminals, not to mention suspects or people who are not even being investigated(!), also have personal rights . Nobody can override this with their own opinion.
• These personal rights may be weakened under very specific circumstances Requirements that only apply in very rare cases.
• Children and young people also have personal rights that may not be violated by private searches (pictures of supposedly wanted children, sick children, etc.).
• Anyone who violates the personal rights of third parties must expect expensive warnings, claims for damages and compensation for pain and suffering and may be committing criminal offenses.
• Parents often search for their missing children privately, even if this is the job of the police and can even hinder the search if the police first investigate in private and thereby warn a possible perpetrator. In addition, these parents should also remember to delete the post later; there is also the risk that the post will simply be copied, meaning that the private search will still be floating around the internet years later!

To be clear: private search calls can lead to criminal liability. It is very likely that at least civil claims will arise.

The North Rhine-Westphalia police have also published the following information:

Well-intentioned is not always well-done: Sharing private calls for missing people on social networks involves a number of pitfalls that can, under certain circumstances, be very problematic for the person sharing the message, but also for the missing person themselves.

We explain to you why:

? Is the call real or a fake?

You can't answer this question unless you know the circumstances of the case and the story behind the missing people.
Maybe you fall for a fake and spread the data of a person who is either not missing at all or who has no consent for his photo to be published.

Danger: This can be expensive for you, and you may get to know the supposedly missing person personally in court with claims for recourse.

? Is the person currently still missing?

You can't answer this question either. The authors of a private search may remember to report the discovery on their own site, but you will not be informed if you have not shared the request directly from the original site and subscribed to the site. So you shared a post that may no longer be relevant. The personal data of the person who is no longer missing remains on your side, although they would of course have to be deleted.

Danger: This can be expensive for you, and you may get to know the supposedly missing person personally in court with claims for recourse.

? What consequences does this have for the missing person?

Once a photo/poster with a name and personal information has been posted on the Internet, it can no longer be removed from the virtual world. The internet doesn't forget anything!

So a young person who may have “run away” and is desperately searched for privately on the Internet by his concerned relatives is always confronted with his adolescent past. And future employers also scour social media before hiring and try to get information about their new trainee or employee. Although “running away” is not a crime, it at least shows that the young person had some problem in his social environment, which is why he left it. Are you really doing him or her a favor?

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? Therefore, BE CAREFUL when sharing private missing person searches.

Sharing police calls for missing people, on the other hand, is expressly desired: The police are therefore extremely careful and only very rarely actually launch a public search for missing people. Beforehand, it is carefully considered whether the listed disadvantages of a public search are acceptable - precisely because the dangerous situation requires it.

And: Data protection is always guaranteed here. That's why we don't put any personal data from people you're looking for directly on Facebook. When you receive a search report, you will always be redirected from here to the search portal. This is the only place where the personal data and photos of the people you are looking for are stored. And here they are immediately deleted by the police as soon as the danger has been averted. So if you share a police search, you won't have any problems because the police will ensure that the data is deleted. The link to the missing person report that you shared will then be ineffective. You have helped, have not fallen for a fake and are not exposed to any claims for recourse.

Further information on this topic can be found at “gulden röttger law attorneys” at:

• Are private search calls on Facebook and the Internet legal and can you publish private search calls from alleged criminals?

Article image: Shutterstock / By igorstevanovic