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The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the Pasadena Police Department to stop using aggregated social media data collected by the people-search website Spokeo Inc.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Mayor Terry Tornek, City Manager Steven Mermell and Police Chief Phillip Sanchez, the civil rights organization said the Pasadena-based company’s Spokeo For Law Enforcement database contains information that is sometimes inaccurate.
The group also alleged in the letter the company may violate the California Constitution’s right to privacy by aggregating broad swaths of information for law enforcement use that people wouldn’t expect a police department to access.
Spokeo provides users with everything from names, addresses and social-media profiles to email addresses, people’s marital status and court and criminal records.
“We request the city provide all relevant documents concerning Spokeo pursuant to the California Public Records Act in order to make public Spokeo’s capabilities and its service’s risk to Pasadena residents’ privacy,” ACLU of Southern California attorney Mohammad Tajsar wrote in his letter to the city.
A class action moves forward
A federal appeals court recently allowed a proposed class action to proceed challenging Spokeo’s failure to “follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy” of the information contained in its reports.
Virginia resident Thomas Robins alleged in a 2011 lawsuit that Spokeo published false data about him, including his age, marital status, wealth and education. He additionally alleged that the information contained a photo of someone else purported to be him which hurt his employment prospects at a time when he was out of work.
Robbins claimed he had been looking for work throughout the time Spokeo was displaying the erroneous information and that he had been unable to find employment. The allegedly bogus information, he said, made him appear to be overqualified for jobs he might have gained, expectant of a higher salary than employers would be willing to pay and less mobile because of family responsibilities.
In a May 2016 ruling, the Supreme Court dismissed the action, saying that Robbins failed to prove an injury that was both “concrete and particularized.” But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided that “Robins had alleged injuries that were sufficiently concrete” to merit a lawsuit.
Striving for accuracy
Spokeo has maintained it is not a consumer reporting agency. Jason Matthes, senior vice president and general counsel for Spokeo, said the company strives to provide information that’s as accurate as possible.
“It’s not a perfect science, but it’s on the forefront of our minds every single day because our data is used by thousands of people each day,” Matthes said last year, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its favor in a class-action lawsuit challenging the accuracy of its data.
Tornek said the city strives to maintain an effective balance between public safety and the rights and privacy of its citizens.
“I think the ACLU has staked out some positions and they want to make sure that government in general and police departments don’t violate people’s privacy rights,” he said. “We’re always mindful of not crossing the line.”
Tornek said he expected Pasadena police to have “more effective investigative tools” than Spokeo, but that he understood police sometimes used the service to “get shorthand information quickly.”
The sweet spot
Tornek said Spokeo recently provided the city with an update on its services at a presentation on public safety. He called the service “benign.”
“But law enforcement is the flash point for all of this stuff,” Tornek said. “Some people will ask why the response time is so long for law enforcement … and others think we have a police state. There are varying points of view and government’s in the middle trying to find the sweet spot.”
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Powered by WordPress.com VIP The ACLU is urging the Pasadena Police Department to stop using aggregated social media data collected by Spokeo Inc., a Pasadea-based people-search business. Harrison Tang, the company’s CEO, is shown here at the company’s headquarters. FILE (Photo by Leo Jarzomb/San Gabriel Valley Tribune)
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ACLU urges Pasadena police to stop using data gathered from Spokeo
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