Ex-Cop Wields Law That Only Protects Cops To Sue Data Broker For Selling His Personal Data
We all hate data brokers. I mean, those of us who aren’t in law enforcement. Law enforcement tends to love data brokers because they allow investigators to collect a bunch of stuff (including location info) without having to whip up a subpoena or (the horror…) ask a judge to sign off on a warrant.
Nope, to get data from data brokers, all you need is cash. If you can buy, they will sell. And, since privacy laws in the US haven’t really gotten around to dealing with the modern reality of having your data passed around like a joint in a high school parking lot on graduation day, most people have no legal options for recourse.
Most people, that is. In some places, people who’ve already enjoyed plenty of extra rights when they were still employed as law enforcement officers get to enjoy extra rights even though they’re no longer working for the government.
Enter retired police officer [squints in partial disbelief at article] Michael Jackson, who is taking Whitepages to court for doing the thing that Whitepages does: sell access to any personal information it has managed to collect. Here’s Suzanne Smalley, reporting for The Record.
Whitepages is the latest data broker to be sued for allegedly flouting laws barring the publication of home addresses and other personal information belonging to judges, police officers, prosecutors and others in law enforcement.
A retired West Virginia police officer filed a class action lawsuit against the company late last month for publishing his home address, a violation of a 2021 West Virginia statute known as Daniel’s Law.
The West Virginia law is similar to legislation enacted in New Jersey in 2020 following the murder of a federal judge’s son by a disgruntled lawyer who had appeared before her and found her personal information online. That law, also called Daniel’s Law, was enacted following an emotional appeal for reform from U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas, whose son was killed.
This lawsuit likely wouldn’t have had much of a chance if it had been filed anywhere else. Federal courts aren’t generally inclined to rule against information gathering, even if some of this is performed by odious companies with dubious ethics. Information gathering — especially the collection and curation of publicly-available data — is just as often used for good as it is used for pure profit.
The law that might give this ex-cop a shot at a settlement is alluded to in the opening paragraphs of the article. It says West Virginia’s law is “similar” to a law protecting judges in New Jersey. And there’s a federal equivalent, but that too only applies to judges, forbidding the buying and selling of their personal data.
West Virginia has decided it’s not enough for cops (even ex-cops!) to be juries and executioners. They should also be on the same level as judges.
Under the West Virginia statute, data brokers and others cannot disclose the home address or personal phone number of any active or retired law enforcement personnel “under circumstances in which a reasonable person would believe that providing such information would expose another to harassment or risk of harm to life or property.”
And there it is. Former officer Michael Jackson has grounds to sue because the law says cops — even ex-cops — deserve more protection than regular people. Now, he might need to demonstrate that the mere delivery of his info to anyone giving money to Whitepages would result in harassment or harm, but if the state already believes cops deserve more rights than other people, it won’t take much to convince a court that selling cops’ data, at minimum, violates the law.
Then again, it may not. Former officer Michael Jackson’s lawsuit [PDF] is 50% recitation, 50% conclusory statements. That’s not the sort of thing that easily survives motions to dismiss. Half the lawsuit is given over to recounting the history of the law protecting judges, as well as the full wording of the relevant West Virginia law. The other half is just him claiming that merely because the law exists, he should get paid.
What’s ignored is the other part of the law — the part that says the law only covers publication of info that would cause a “reasonable person” to believe that providing that info to others would expose cops/ex-cops to “harassment or risk of harm to life or property.” Merely making that information available doesn’t make it an immediate violation of the law.
It’s obvious the law was crafted to deter people from sharing cops’ personal info with the intent to harass or harm them. It doesn’t really cover data brokers, who are agnostically (so to speak) providing data to whoever’s interested in it and is willing to pay for access. Whitepages doesn’t know this info belongs to a cop (again, so to speak). It just knows people are searching for it and offers it up for the right price. There’s no malice here, just the desire to turn a profit.
Without more, this former officer might find his case kicked out of court. Then again, US courts at every level tend to view cops as more worthy of judicial discretion than their civilian counterparts. But I’d like to believe this court will at least ask this ex-cop to provide literally any evidence at all that Whitepages doing what Whitepages does is somehow a violation of the part of the law that forbids publishing information with the intent to harass or harm. Nothing in his lawsuit suggests the mere presumptive existence of his data on Whitepages’ servers violates this cop-favoring carve-out.