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Technology (iphones, etc)

If the abuser hacked and deleted my social media account, can it be retrieved by court orders?

To help me answer your question, I consulted with a colleague from the Safety Net Project, another project at our organization that focuses on technology and abuse. She said that being able to recover the account is probably going to depend a lot on what social media platform it is. Most do have some kind of period between deactivation and true permanent deletion- and it’s usually a fairly short period. Therefore, to have the best chance of restoring your account, you may need to act quickly.

For Instagram, I found the following information in Instagram’s article about deleting an account: “After 30 days of your account deletion request, your account and all your information will be permanently deleted, and you won’t be able to retrieve your information. During those 30 days the content remains subject to Instagram’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and is not accessible to other people using Instagram. It may take up to 90 days to complete the deletion process after it begins. Copies of your content may remain after the 90 days in backup storage that we use to recover in the event of a disaster, software error, or other data loss event. We may also keep your information for things like legal issues, terms violations, or harm prevention efforts. Learn more about this in our Privacy Policy.”

I also found this article on restoring a deleted Instagram account, though I can’t vouch for any of the information it provides.  

If the account data still exists, a victim may be able to regain control of the account, but how to do so will also depend on the platform. Most platforms have some kind of “What to do if my account was hacked” type help page. Below are links to these pages for several of the common social media platforms, which explain what someone can do if their account was hacked:

​Also, if it’s helpful, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a guide on How To Recover Your Hacked Email or Social Media Account, but I didn’t see information there about what to do if the hacker deleted your account entirely. Please know that WomensLaw can’t vouch for the information on these outside websites. I share the links for your information only.  

Legally, it might be possible to get some kind of preservation-of-evidence court order, but the purpose of that kind of order is to preserve evidence, not to be able to use it again. If there’s an existing protective order or restraining order, a person could potentially claim a violation if they can demonstrate that the abuser is responsible. Though again, that wouldn’t necessarily give the victim access to their account back, it would just be action against the abuser.

Additionally, even if someone doesn’t have a protective order [substitute if the person says they got a protective order but it wasn’t served yet: although someone can’t violate a restraining order if it wasn’t served yet,] new bad conduct using technology could possibly still be a crime in and off itself. On our website you can read about Abuse Using Technology. You can also see the legal definition of [LOOK ON CRIMES PAGE FOR HACKING-TYPE CRIME AND LINK] and other crimes that an abuser may have committed in [STATE] on our [LINK TO CRIMES PAGE] pages. However, I can’t say whether these crimes may apply to your situation. You may wish to speak with a lawyer in [STATE] to help you figure out if your abuser’s actions violated any state laws. You can find links for free and paid lawyers in your state on our Finding a Lawyer [HYPERLINK] page. However, again, this would be more about holding the abuser accountable rather than a way to restore the account.  

So basically, in terms of restoring the deleted account, a lot will likely come down to the specific social media platform.

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