Officials cleared of privacy breach face fresh court action

‎ABU DHABI // Three government workers who were cleared of breaching female employees’ privacy will appear in court again after the Court of Cassation referred the case back to appeals.

‎The Emirati head of a federal authority, A K, and an Al Ain branch manager, M A, and a Lebanese IT expert, P, were convicted by the Misdemeanor Court of violating privacy laws by placing CCTV cameras in a female customer service centre and all three were issued suspended jail sentences.

The Appeals Court then found them not guilty however.

‎Public prosecution appealed their acquittal at the Court of Cassation, arguing that the verdict contradicted article 21/1 of the cyber crime law when it decided that the case files lacked proof that the defendants intended to breach the female employees’ privacy, and that installing the camera was an administrative procedure in a public place.

Public prosecution argued that the article did not specify if the acts needed to be conducted in a private place for them to be prosecuted.

“By that it violated article 21/1 from the Federal Penal code; that the court issues acquittal if the incident has not been confirmed, or unpunished by the law,” the cassation court said. “The appeals verdict did not clarify the legal base it based its acquittal upon, and its reasons have contradicted, and it became unclear what the court meant.

“This made it difficult for the cassation court to monitor how well the law has been applied.”

The court accepted the argument and referred the case back to appeals.