Interesting Privacy Decision in New Hampshire

TCPALaw writes "A huge decision in privacy law was handed down today by the NH Supreme Court in the Amy Boyer case. Amy was stalked and killed by a man who got her personal information, including SSN, from an on-line information broker. Privacy groups such as EPIC have argued that access to sensitive personal information should carry with it liability for misuse, and can constitute a tort. The NH Supreme Court agreed. Now perhaps you can sue the spyware companies."

Comments

Privacy and Information

[Hungus]

A little background:
I work with a security and investigations firm and also work as a medical applications developer. This means i see both sides of the privacy issue. On the security and investigations side I routinely find out more information than you ever though was possible in your worst nightmares about people and their relationships. On the medical side I try to make it as difficult as possible (short of destroying the data) for non-authorized people to access information.

There is a large amount of data that is part of the public record that anyone can access and it is perfectly legal for them to do so.

Where you were born

Criminal record

Drivers license info

SSN#

Address

Tax Records etc.

I often wonder if people know how much of this information is available. I am not sure what the Justices were thinking as I have not read the case opinions at this point, but teh stalker could have just as easily gone to the public library and courthouse and found out teh same information. I personally would love to be able to have more anonimity. I dont think that the Govt. or anyone else should know where and when I travel, what websites I go to, what my email says or who I live with. But the sad fact is that America has historically been willing to give up these "rights" and "privacies" for temporary security. and this I think may be part of the result.