Privacy laws in the United States are a patchwork at best. More often than not, they miss the mark, leaving most people with little actual privacy. When such laws are enacted, they can seem tailored to protect those in positions of power.
Even laws designed to protect crime victims might end up protecting the names of abusive officers by labelling them as victims of crime in cases like resisting arrest or assaulting an officer. Such accusations are often used in cases of excessive force, keeping cops’ names out of the spotlight.
For example, a recent New Jersey law emerged from a tragic event in which a government employee faced violence, sparking a legislative response. Known as “Daniel’s Law,” it was created after the personal information of a federal judge’s family was used by a murderer to track them down. Instead of a broader privacy law that could protect all residents of New Jersey, it focused exclusively on safeguarding certain public employees.
Under the law, judges, prosecutors, and police officers can request that their personal information (addresses and phone numbers, for example) be scrubbed from public databases. Popular services that people use to look up information, such as Whitepages or Spokeo, must comply. While this sounds like a win for privacy, the protections stop there. The average citizen is still left exposed, with no legal recourse if their personal data is misused or sold.
At the centre of the debate is a lawyer who’s taken up the cause of protecting cops’ personal data. He’s suing numerous companies for making this type of information accessible. While noble at first glance, a deeper look raises questions.
It transpires that the lawyer’s company has previously collected and monetised personal data. And when a data service responded to his demands by freezing access to some of the firm’s databases, he and his clients cried foul — despite specifically requesting restrictions on how their information could be used.
It’s also worth noting how unevenly data protection measures are to be applied. Cops, for instance, frequently rely on the same tools and databases they’re now asking to be restricted. These services have long been used by law enforcement for investigations and running background checks. Yet, when law enforcement data appears in such systems, special treatment is required.
A recent anecdote involved a police union leader who was shown a simple property record pulled from an online database. The record displayed basic details like his home address and his property’s square footage — information anyone could find with a few clicks. His reaction was one of shock and anger – an obvious disconnect.
For everyday citizens, this level of data exposure is a given. But for law enforcement, it requires a level of granular exclusion that’s not practical.
Perhaps everyone, including law enforcement personnel deserves better safeguards against data harvesting and misuse? But what Daniel’s law and later events involving police officers point to is the need for the type of improvements to the way data is treated for all, not just one group of society.
Instead of expanding privacy rights to all New Jersey residents, the law carves out exceptions for the powerful — leaving the rest of the population as vulnerable as ever.
(Photo by Unsplash)
See also: EU AI legislation sparks controversy over data transparency
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