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Drunk Driver Mugshots Featured On Facebook
An anonymous reader writes "Get yourself a DUI and your mugshot may get some exposure on Facebook. That is, if you get caught in New Jersey by Evesham Township's police, which have begun posting mugshots of arrested people, convicted or not, on its Facebook page. Now, we know that if you get arrested, your privacy is pretty much limited to the brand of your underpants, but the local police department has started a controversy and may find itself in hot water. How much value does a public mugshot on Facebook have to the public? What privacy rights do you have if you get arrested?"
Newsday has been publishing DUI arrestees' mugshots on their website for at least the last few years.
It's always confirmation bias!
All well and good, except these are being posted when these people are arrested. At this time, they are still presumed innocent until guilt is proven or they are convicted of a crime. This smacks of harassment.
What privacy rights do you have if you get arrested?"
Not many. I work in public safety in the Southeastern United states. In most jurisdictions, when you are detained, your charge details and mugshots are public record. We even have a local paper that publishes HUNDREDS of mugshots every single week. It is completely legal, albeit frowned upon, but completely legal. If you went to your county courthouse and asked for a mugshot of some shmoe you saw in the public records page of your gazette, they would be obliged to give it to you.
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Don't believe me? Go to Myrtle Beach SC, and at every gas station is a copy of Just Busted
This is not new. Electronic mugshots are not new either, many counties host pages that offer up all of their current inmate data.
We actually deal with news agencies who get mad because we don't help provide enough data. The news sites eat this junk up. They want it in the most easily consumable format possible, and want a copypasta job so they can just put our data straight into their paper.
Also, mugshots and inmate data online is not a new thing. Check out VINE , you can find out when they are released and even be notified by cell phone.
This is a non-story. This is a public safety agency using a new medium, and so it is "scandalous". Same dog, new tricks folks. Check your local laws, hell call your courthouse, you have less "privacy" than you think. Much less.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Wow, talk about a false dichotomy. Nobody here in Norway will publish my name if I get arrested (except in some few exceptional circumstances) but there's nothing like a secret arrest. I can still contact the media, or have my lawyer contact the media. I can waiver the confidentiality requirements of the police. This is the same as if e.g. I wanted to run a story on my medical condition, they could interview my doctor if I waiver the confidentiality on my journal. A secret arrest would imply the police could prevent me from telling anyone that I am arrested, or to not acknowledge that I've been arrested.
Hell, around here I can't even get a copy of my criminal record without reason. Employers in general can't ask for one, and even when they're legally required to then only for relevant crimes. So for example I might have to get one to become a school teacher, but it'll say nothing about any tax dodging. Only if I have committed crimes against children that'd make me unfit to be a teacher. Only applying for the police or security clearance in the military will bring out your full record. You make it sound like we'd be some Kafka-esque country with secret trails and all that but we're not. There's more choices than that and public scapegoating the way the US does.
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