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Justice Abad delivered the Courts opinion. The Court noted that internet users have subjective reasonable
expectation of privacy over their communications transmitted
The government of Philippines adopted the Cybercrime Prevention online. However, it did not find the expectation as objectively
Act of 2012 for the purpose of regulating access to and use of reasonable because traffic data sent through internet does not
cyberspace. Several sections of the law define relevant cyber disclose the actual names and addresses (residential or office) of
crimes and enable the government to track down and penalize the sender and the recipient, only their coded Internet Protocol (IP)
violators. addresses.
Among 21 challenged sections, the Court declared Sections 4(c) Even though the Court ruled that real-time traffic data under
(3), 12, and 19 of the Act as unconstitutional. Section 12 does not enjoy the objective reasonable expectation of
privacy, the existence of enough data may reveal the personal
information of its sender or recipient, against which the Section
Section 4(c)(3) prohibits the transmission of unsolicited commercial fails to provide sufficient safeguard. The Court viewed the law as
electronic communications, commonly known as spams, that seek virtually limitless, enabling law enforcement authorities to engage
to advertise, sell, or offer for sale of products and services unless in fishing expedition, choosing whatever specified communication
the recipient affirmatively consents, or when the purpose of the they want.
communication is for service or administrative announcements
from the sender to its existing users, or when the following
conditions are present: (aa) The commercial electronic Accordingly, the Court struck down Section 12 for lack of specificity
communication contains a simple, valid, and reliable way for the and definiteness as to ensure respect for the right to privacy.
recipient to reject receipt of further commercial electronic
messages (opt-out) from the same source; (bb) The commercial Section 19 authorizes the Department of Justice to restrict or block
electronic communication does not purposely disguise the source access to a computer data found to be in violation of the Act. The
of the electronic message; and (cc) The commercial electronic Petitioners argued that this section also violated the right to
communication does not purposely include misleading information freedom of expression, as well as the constitutional protection
in any part of the message in order to induce the recipients to read against unreasonable searches and seizures.
the message. The Court first recognized that computer data constitutes a
personal property, entitled to protection against unreasonable
The government argued that unsolicited commercial searches and seizures. Also, the Philippines Constitution requires
communications amount to both nuisance and trespass because the government to secure a valid judicial warrant when it seeks to
they tend to interfere with the enjoyment of using online services seize a personal property or to block a form of expression.
and that they enter the recipients domain without prior permission. Because Section 19 precluded any judicial intervention, the Court
The Court first noted that spams are a category of commercial found it unconstitutional.
speech, which does not receive the same level of protection as
other constitutionally guaranteed forms of expression ,but is