Is Privacy Dead?
We find ourselves in the same predicament that we were in nearly 200 years ago, with the invention of the photograph and telecommunications. We have privacy issue laws with social media giants such as Facebook regarding how much information a company can collect on us, and for what reason. Soon there will come a day when marketers will need to take a degree in law in order to proceed with digital marketing!
A recent court case in the US really caught my attention as it highlights this issue perfectly. The question is, do you think the right verdict was reached?
Riley V. California and United States V. Wurie.
Two famous U.S court cases were recently brought to the Supreme Courts, and the amicus briefs were filed in ‘Riley vs. California’ and ‘United States vs. Wurie’. In both cases, after the arrest of a suspect, law enforcement officers searched the arrestee’s cell phone without obtaining a warrant from a judge. Unsurprisingly, the suspect argued that examining the content of the phone without obtaining a warrant, had violated his constitutional rights. The Police argued that they had the right to search at the time of the arrest for their officers’ safety (in case suspects could potentially use their phone to detonate a bomb, or summon for accomplices).
Ultimately, the Supreme Judges had to determine if the constitution ‘protects’ the contents of a mobile phone from a search warrant arrest. They had to go right back to 1st March 1792 when the fourth amendment was adopted. In June 2014, Supreme judges unanimously ruled (9-0) that the search incident to arrest exception does not extend to a cell phone, and that the police force will still need to obtain a search warrant in order to search an arrestee’s phone after the arrest has been made.
Here in the UK, it seems the Police have the right to search mobile devices, by copying everything off the device and processing it at a later date.
Here is an article from the Independent explaining more on the UK Police laws.
Undoubtedly at some point, the US Supreme Court’s decision will result in a UK debate over whether or not the same laws should be applied here.
What lawsuits such as these illustrate is that some laws of the horse and cart era have to be urgently reviewed in order to be relevant to our modern day digital society. Especially as the cracks of the old laws are now starting to show, and Internet ‘Privacy leaks’ become the norm that people have to deal with.
As always, we’d love to hear from you. Do privacy laws mean anything nowadays? Has technology evolved too fast to keep up with our own human rights?
