If you’ve been in a car accident, or suffered any type of personal injury that may result in a lawsuit, seriously consider deactivating your Facebook and other social networking sites.

The best thing to do is deactivate your sites.  Don’t delete them (you can’t destroy evidence); instead deactivate them so there can be no more activity on them going forward.  This way no “post accident” photos or material can be posted on a site in your control.

Why not just be careful about what’s posted?  Because although you may monitor what you post, the nature of social networking sites is you can’t control what others post/say on your site.

Also, be mindful of the photos you pose for, because in this digital age they could be posted online for the world to see with or without your consent.

Since Facebook launched, British Columbia courts and other courts across Canada are wrestling with what to do about Facebook pages and other interent pages – especially those with privacy settings.  The primary issue is whether a party in a lawsuit must disclose and/or produce private internet pages?

In my article “How Private are Your Private Facebook Pages?” I set out briefly what some Canadian courts are ruling about the production of private internet pages (as of May 2009).  Some decisions to date state if online content is relevant – even if private (i.e. privacy settings), it must be disclosed and produced to the other side.  This means your privacy settings mean nothing if you become involved in a lawsuit.