After reading Ian’s post last week about how in the new age of connectivity the lines between what is work related and what is personal are not only blurred, I was reminded of an article along the same subject line. The article discusses several court cases in the US involving young people charged with driving while under the influence of alcohol. In these cases, prosecutors have accessed the defendants’ Facebook and Myspace pages and made sentencing agreements and recommendations based on the perceived behavior of the defendants in the photos posted on the sites.

In one case, a defendant was sentenced to two years in prison rather than probation because between her DUI arrest and conviction, pictures were posted to her Myspace page showing her to be holding a glass of wine and joking about drinking. Distasteful, but not illegal. According to the prosecutor this photo evidence showed a sufficient lack of remorse on the part of the defendant and therefore warranted a harsher sentence. Continue…