With online privacy still very much a topic of interest and contention within the Internet industry and throughout the online community, a court in New Jersey has this week struck a blow for those users concerned that their personal information might be being banded about without consent.
New Jersey court strikes one for online privacy. Credit: DavidThePimpDaddy/Flickr.
More pointedly, New Jersey’s Supreme Court has ruled that Internet service providers (ISPs) cannot reveal user-related information to a third-party without the support of a subpoena. The boundaries of the subpoena ruling even stretch to include the police, reports the Associated Press.
According to the court, New Jersey’s constitution differs from the overall constitution of the United States in that it provides people with greater protection against the divulging of personal information.
“The reality is that people do expect a measure of privacy when they use the Internet,” commented Grayson Barber, a lawyer representing the group of concerned organisations that brought forth ‘friend-of-the-court’ briefs to support the case for personal privacy.
Mr. Barber also noted that the New Jersey decision exists as the very first US ruling that acknowledges users are entitled to a reasonable degree of privacy protection.
The Supreme Court’s decision also upholds a prior lower court ruling that prevented police authorities from uncovering the identity of a New Jersey woman who, after an argument with her boss in 2004, changed the access codes to the company Web site.
Police involved in investigating the case later obtained a municipal court subpoena to have Comcast Corp., the woman’s ISP, trace her online activities and reveal her identity. However, a higher court said that only a criminal grand jury subpoena would be deemed sufficient to grant such access given that the offence in question was indictable.
As outlined by the court’s latest ruling, the police must secure a grand jury subpoena before attempting to obtain sensitive personal information connected to online users.
Also, the court has said that the woman’s 2005 indictment no longer stands unless prosecutors are able to offer sufficient proof against her without the now-suppressed evidence obtained from Comcast.
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