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.

Accessory to a crime?

[stevel]

I live in the city where Amy Boyer was murdered, and my wife knows Amy's mother. We've (my wife and I) have talked about this case a lot, especially every time the Remsburgs appeared in a new newspaper article about their fight against the "information" companies.

As horrible as this crime was, it's not clear to either of us that if Liam Youens hadn't been able to buy the information on where Amy worked that she would be alive today. Youens knew where Amy lived, and he had been obsessed with her for years. It was just a matter of time.

I think what Docusearch did was slimy, and possibly illegal - especially the use of "social engineering" to trick Helen Remsburg into revealing information about her daughter.

The issue at hand is whether or not Docusearch, and similar companies, have an obligation to warn people when their personal info is sold to someone, especially when the purpose is unknown. I think it's well established that this sort of information is often used for heinous purposes - remember the case of actress Rebecca Schaffer, who was murdered by someone who bought her address from the California DMV!

In my opinion, the NH Supreme Court got this one right - Docusearch knows or should know that the primary use of the information they collect is NOT for the benefit of the subjects. They should have an obligation to inform the subject that the information has been collected and sold.

However, I think it is wrong to assign the blame for Amy's death on Docusearch. They were an "accessory to a crime", but did not commit the crime itself.

There are so many "what ifs" in cases such as this, that can have people tied up in knots for years. Youens had a web page up which gave fairly solid clues that he had it in for Amy Boyer. Did anyone in a position to do anything see this beforehand? Probably not...

As for spyware ("spywear"? Is that the watch with a poison dart?), I don't see an obvious connection with this case.