Technology continues to permeate through virtually every sphere of people’s lives. In fact, this century is variously referred to as the “Digital Age” to signify how various technological devices shape people’s daily lives. However, with the incessant use of these technological devices, huge chunks of information is generated, shared and stored, and to aptly put it, most organizations refer to this information as “Big data”. With such a reference, organizations usually seek to analyze this information and see how they can put it into profitable. Such information usually comprises of people’s personal information, such as their names, identification documents, place of residence, and even their current physical location, among other sensitive information. The use of technology and particularly the handling of such information is raising privacy concerns, especially in respect to the 4 th Amendment, which protects people’s privacy and the requirement that people’s consent must be sort in order to access certain information.
The Fourth Amendment
The fourth amendment of the Constitution of the United States stipulates that, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (Larkin, 2013).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Clearly, the 4 th amendment does not mention anything to do with technology or digital applications and it is because the amendment was drafted at a time where technology had not evolved to the current scale, or people did not know that technology would undermine people’s privacy at a rate such as the one being witnessed presently. The amendment in its literal or raw form seems, therefore, to have been outdated by events, and there is urgent need to revise it to address current realities. Nevertheless, the intent of the protection of people’s privacy is still enshrined in this amendment, especially in the mention of “effects”, which in the present times could also comprise of technological devices such as mobile phones, laptops, or any other important devices.
Case
In an attempt to address the inadequacy of the fourth amendment, the Supreme Court in the case of Riley v. California , unanimously ruled that police officers needed to obtain a search warrant in order to search through an individual’s phone or any technological device (Supreme Court, 2013). In the case of Riley who was the defendant, police officers had seized his phone at a traffic stop, and after discovering loaded firearms in his car, they had subsequently searched through his contacts, messages, photographs and videos. The search resulted in police officers charging the defendant with an unrelated shooting incident, which had happened several weeks before he was arrested. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence which the police officers had collected during the search of his mobile phone on the argument that the officers had violated his rights enshrined under the Fourth Amendment (Electronic Privacy Information Center, n.d).
Riley’s case shows the extent to which digital devices can easily be used by individuals, institutions and government agencies to intrude into people’s private information or data. Although digital devices also pose significant security challenges to law enforcement officers, unscrupulous or malicious individuals can use people’s private information for their own purposes. For instance, in the case of Riley, suppose he had not committed any offense in the past but the officers still searched through his cell phone contacts and messages without his consent, it surely would have been a bit too intrusive, and his rights under the Fourth Amendment would have been breached.
Technology and Privacy Concerns
In an article published in The New York Times, Wolff (2019) raises intriguing points in relation to the Fourth Amendment and privacy. The first point is that legal protections of data in the United States are based on the perception of a “reasonable expectation of privacy”, and secondly, during United States v. Miller ruling in 1976, people do not expect their privacy to be protected when they voluntarily turn over their information to a third party. To argue from these two points, the first perception and the second ruling in essence mean that people’s data is vulnerable, and they do not expect any sort of protection from the government. The greatest use of people’s information is arguably by institutions such as banks, internet providers, as well as other government and private corporations (Leavens, 2015). These institutions record and store people’s sensitive information and in the absence of legal restrictions and policies, some institutions are likely to take advantage of the weak policies and expose people to security risks.
The Case of Facebook
In 2016, Facebook was involved in a controversial issue related to the exposure of users’ personal information to third parties. In this case, during the 2016 presidential campaigns in the United States, the company allowed a third party data company, Cambridge Analytica to access personal data for more than 87 million Facebook users without their consent (Wagner, 2018). The firm used the personal information of the users to send targeted messages in an attempt to influence the outcome of the election. According to Wagner (2018), Facebook’s model of operation involves using people’s data to “sell access to them”. This means that the company generates sensitive information from users such as age, gender, location, IP address, and other crucial information, and consequently uses this information to woo companies to place adverts and Facebook directs them to specific people based on the data collected. From this model although Facebook does not currently share people sensitive information with third parties, the company still does not ask users for their permission in order to send them adverts. In a conventional sense, advertisers did not have the permission to intrude into people’s homes and did not even have their personal information to generate adverts. However, with the digital revolution, people have lost their privacy because corporations, and especially internet providers, can use people’s information for their own gain, and do not have to ask for their consent.
Loopholes
Firstly, there is a vague definition of what constitutes public or private information in the advent of technological advancement, especially whether corporations need to access people’s profiles without their permission. Secondly, there are weak policies in respect to how corporations in the digital age need to use people’s information (Donohue, 2017). By stating that the interaction between people and corporations is voluntary, then so much vulnerability tends to arise. These corporations may use people’s data as they please especially since it is “voluntary”. An important question needs to be asked, concerning whether the use of particularly social media channels gives the owners the right and freedom to use the users’ information as they please. In the traditional sense, if police officers are allowed access into someone’s home, they need to produce a search warrant to be granted permission, but with the current corporations, there are no such warrants, and this evidently is a breach of people’s rights under the Fourth Amendment.
Recommendations
The best way of protecting people’s privacy as enshrined under the Fourth Amendment is to create robust laws and policies. The legal framework needs to ensure that all corporations, especially those operating on the digital platforms seek for consent from users before using their information. Another important requirement would be requiring all digital corporations to update their terms of use and notifying users of the same and to require that only those users who read these terms and accept them are allowed to use their services. On the same note, these terms should be brief and easy to understand as opposed to the lengthy statements which are always difficult to read and understand. On most occasions, users only accept them because they cannot understand them, and therefore, expose themselves to privacy issues without knowing. Overall, the Fourth Amendment should also be revised to incorporate or to capture the modern realities of technological advances. Currently, judges, especially those who were born at a time when technology was not so widespread do not understand the implications and consequences of many of the digital devices used currently. Therefore, they may not understand that these devices store so much data that is both important and sensitive. It is important that teams appointed to review the Fourth Amendment ought to be fairly constituted in order to make changes that are realistic and that address the current challenges.
In conclusion, technology has evolved to a scale that allows people to generate, share and store a lot of sensitive information on digital devices. However, with such vast amounts of data being stored and shared, various privacy issues arise, and people’s rights under the Fourth Amendment may be breached. These risks have mainly arisen from large corporations, especially internet service providers, which seemingly have taken advantage of weak digital privacy laws to manipulate users’ data to their advantage. In order to solve these challenges, there is urgent need to revise the Fourth Amendment to capture the modern realities, as well as to create strong regulations that control how people’s information on digital devices is captured and used.
References
Donohue, L. K. (2017). The Fourth Amendment in a Digital World. NYU Ann. Surv. Am. L. , 71 , 553.
Electronic Privacy Information Center. (n.d). Riley v. California . https://epic.org/amicus/cell-phone/riley/
Larkin, P. (2013). The Fourth Amendment and New Technologies. https://www.heritage.org/report/the-fourth-amendment-and-new-technologies#:~:text=The%20right%20of%20the%20people,and%20the%20persons%20or%20things
Leavens, A. (2015). The Fourth Amendment and Surveillance in a Digital World. Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development (JCRED) , 13-13.
Supreme Court. (2013). Riley v. California . https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-132_8l9c.pdf
Wagner, K. (2018). This is how Facebook uses your data for ad targeting. https://www.vox.com/2018/4/11/17177842/facebook-advertising-ads-explained-mark-zuckerberg
Wolff, J. (2019). Losing Our Fourth Amendment Data Protection. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/28/opinion/fourth-amendment-privacy.html
