privacy law

The Legal Intelligencer's Lizzy McLellan has a piece analyzing the legal problems posed by wearable technology: "Lawyers in the technology space agreed that new capabilities provided by wearable devices like Google Glass and GoPro cameras, as well as nonwearable but portable devices, like smartphones and tablets, have created some questions of criminal and civil law that have yet to be answered, or are answered inconsistently in different jurisdictions. But that will not slow down users and creators of those tools, they said."

Matthew C. Mousley of Duane Morris, told McLellan that invasion of privacy claims will turn on the venue where the technology is used, including if there is an expectation that actions won't be recorded in that space or there is a policy against recording in that space.

The Justice Department has issued its first guidelines for the use of domestic drones by law enforcement, saying that the use of drones must not violate civil rights or the right to privacy, the Associated Press reports. The department said drones can't be used just to monitor protests and other activities protected by the constitution.

Florida Governor Rick Scott has signed a bill limiting the use of drones when anyone has a "reasonable expectation of privacy," the Tampa Bay Times' Michael Auslen reports. The law goes into effect July 1.

Legislators in Nevada are considering a bill that would regulate drones, including the protection of privacy interests, the Associated Press' Riley Snyder reports. The bill would set "250 feet as the lowest level a drone can fly before trespassing, with some exceptions, and it requires a warrant for certain police observations by a drone on a private home," Snyder reports. The bill passed out of Assembly, but the Senate has not yet taken action.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Thursday that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of Americans' phone records is illegal, The New York Times' Charlie Savage and Jonathan Weisman reports. The panel ruled that the Patriot Act can't be interpreted to allow the bulk collection of domestic call metadata, but noted that Congress could choose to authorize "'such a far-reaching and unprecedented program.'" The Patriot Act is set to expire June 1.

The Patriot Act permits the collection of records deemed "'relevant'" to a national security case, but the federal government interpreted this to cover the collection of all phone-call metadata so long as relevant records were reviewed by intelligence analysts, Savage and Weisman note.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and other groups have appealed the Federal Aviation Administration's refusal to create privacy regulations for drones, IDG News Service's Martyn Williams reports. The groups are appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

When the FAA proposed rules governing the commercial use of drones, those rules did not mention privacy concerns, only safety rules. Instead, the White House has asked the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to address drones and privacy.

A bill is being proposed in Nevada that would place privacy restrictions on the use of drones, the Associated Press' Riley Snyder reports: the bill "would limit how police can use drones in investigations and require the state's public safety department to keep a public listing of all drones used by state agencies. The bill also criminalizes using a drone to take a clandestine photo of a person in a private setting and sets certain trespassing rules for drones flying under 250 feet."

In the Midwest, the Michigan House has approved a bill to prohibit the use of drones for hunting, and Wisconsin lawmakers held a hearing this week on further regulations for drones, the AP reports. Wisconsin already banned drones that are capable of videorecording from flying in areas where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Colorado lawmakers have delayed a vote on legislation that would criminalize the use of drones and other surveillance technology to photograph or monitor people, the Associated Press reports. The legislation would make it a crime first-degree trespassing to take images of someone with a reasonable expectation of privacy. One legislator said the bill, as drafted, would be a "'teribbly sweeping criminalization of photography.'"

The sponsor asked for a delay in the vote on the bill in order to rework it.

A New York Assemblyman has proposed legislation that would make it a felony to film patients receiving medical treatment without prior consent and give patients and their families a private cause of action to sue for damages, ProPublica's Charles Ornstein reports. The bill was filed after a TV show aired the final moments of a patient's life while he was being treated at NewYork-Presybterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and his wife recognized his voice when she saw the episode. New York does not recognize a common law right to privacy.

Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has released proposed rules for integrating small commercial drones into the American airspace, the next regulatory front for drones is privacy, Slate's Margot E. Kaminski reports. The FAA isn't going to set privacy rules for drones; instead, President Barack Obama issued a presidential memorandum giving federal agencies marching orders on only keeping data collected from drones for 180 days and ordering agencies not to "violate the First Amendment or discriminate against people based on ethnicity, race, gender, or national origin" through their use of drones.

State law may provide the protection for privacy from drones, Kaminski reports, but First Amendment challenges are likely to ensue against such regulation. Wisconsin may have the best model for regulating privacy vis-a-vis drones because that state's law hinges "on whether the subject of surveillance has a reasonable expectation of privacy," Kaminski reports.