Stephanie Pell and Richard Salgado of the Lawfare Institute write:
On July 23, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District issued a whopper of a decision that looks to upset decades’ long understandings of how users’ data is protected from disclosure by providers under the Stored Communications Act (SCA). It eviscerates the SCA’s prohibitions that prevent communication platforms from disclosing user communications and other content generally, including selling the content and, in some circumstances, providing it to governmental entities without a search warrant. It also overwhelms the considered, specific exceptions to the prohibitions that Congress crafted that will have ripple effects globally. While the appellate court takes solace in its belief that there are other mechanisms that might help fill the privacy-protection void it created, the decision diminishes the original comprehensive coverage of the SCA to a shadow of what Congress intended.
The companies directly involved in the case, Snap and Meta, are seeking review by the California Supreme Court of the sweeping decision.
Read more at the Lawfare Institute.
h/t, Joe Cadillic