From across the pond, Daniel Miller reports on a GPS application in New York State: A New York borough is to begin using GPS tracking tags in a bid to tackle the problem of domestic violence. Starting next year, Staten Island will use the electronic devices to keep track of offenders who have been found…
Category: U.S.
Was this really “voluntary abandonment” of DNA?
Some courts seem to have adopted an extremely pro-prosecution attitude about what it means to voluntarily “abandon” fingerprints or DNA samples. FourthAmendment.com reports on a California case, People v. Thomas, where a defendant stopped for a DUI consented to a breathalyzer test. Because he did not wipe his saliva off the mouthpiece before handing it back…
Questioning Privacy Protections in Research
Patricia Cohen reports: Hoping to protect privacy in an age when a fingernail clipping can reveal a person’s identity, federal officials are planning to overhaul the rules that regulate research involving human subjects. But critics outside the biomedical arena warn that the proposed revisions may unintentionally create a more serious problem: sealing off vast collections…
Pointer: Cell Phone Data and Expectations of Privacy
FourthAmendment.com points us to an article by Peter A. Crusco in the New York Law Journal that provides a nice synopsis of Supreme Court and other cases on cell phone data – including location information – and the Fourth Amendment. You can read it on Law.com.