SINGAPORE — While a recent landmark judgment allowing court papers to be served on individuals through new media — Skype, Facebook or Internet message boards — ensures that the law keeps pace with technological advancements, more safeguards may be needed to make sure a defendant is not disadvantaged as a result, wrote two law graduates.

In a commentary posted last Saturday on Singapore Law Blog, an online platform for legal news discussions, co-authors Benjamin Tham and Yuen Kit Kuan cautioned against being swept away by the “brave new world” of social media and instant messaging applications, despite how cost-effective, convenient and efficient they could be for serving claims on defendants.

They were commenting on a High Court judgment in May, which ruled that a freelance software developer could serve notice via electronic means for alleged copyright and contract breaches. Mr David Ian Andrew Storey had sued local computer games developer Planet Arkadia, its managing director David Michael Dobson and its director Peter Laurence Dobson for using his works “promotionally and in-game” without permission.

Noting the failed attempts to reach Mr David Dobson at his last-known Australian address, assistant registrar Zhuang Wenxiong allowed substituted service through Facebook and WhatsApp.

If a claimant wants to serve papers through such methods, he has to meet several conditions, including making sure physical copies of the court papers are posted on the front door of a defendant’s last-known address or through registered mail, and he will have to prove that the electronic platform was used by the defendant recently. While the commentary authors lauded the general parameters the court set out for such methods, they listed several areas that needed safeguarding, such as the defendant’s literacy level and age.

“It is commonplace for people of all ages to own a Skype or Facebook account. However, not all may be conversant with all of the functions of these platforms,” they said. Citing the example of an elderly woman, Mr Tham and Ms Yuen questioned whether she would know how to read messages on Facebook or access the legal documents online.

“The Court should be vigilant and scrutinise in greater detail applications for substituted service via electronic means on the parties to be served, who are prima facie vulnerable in this regard,” they added.

Fake accounts could also be a problem, said the authors. One way to circumvent this would be to require substituted service to be carried out via a minimum of two electronic platforms.

And while the judgment stated that the defendant has to be active online within a “reasonable time frame”, the authors felt that this duration would differ according to each case. “The courts can consider the following factors: The personal characteristics of the party to be served (e.g. age), the frequency of usage of the relevant electronic means, any ‘downtime’ or other forms of technical difficulties which render the relevant electronic mean inaccessible prior to the application for substituted service,” they said.

Mr Tham and Ms Yuen noted that the use of electronic means to serve court documents was still in its infancy, and further refinement of the safeguards will “invariably occur” over time.

But they stressed the need to “balance the rights between two competing interests — on one hand, a claimant ‘should be entitled to bring before the court any subject-matter in respect of which he wishes to sue, and on the other hand, that every one sued should have a full opportunity of defending himself against the claim made against him’”.