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Can you illegally wiretap your own device? It would seem to me the criminal implicitly invited the student into his life by using the internet connected proper

Can you illegally wiretap your own device? It would seem to me the criminal implicitly invited the student into his life by using the internet connected property of the Student without permission. In all cases, the criminal, not the student, determined where the phone was and whether it was in use or not (without permission). The student simply used his property where it was located, which is clearly his right to do. The property still belongs to the student. He has reasonable discretion to use it as he wills. In the battle of "rights" it seems the student would be within his rights under the circumstances. This is not to say the student is within his legal rights: legally recognized rights have a long history of not correlating to any reasonable definition of individual rights. So the law may very well be in the wrong on this matter. I'm very much for rights of privacy and the like, and a person should not be subject to search or eavesdropping without due process and probable cause. But this case seems very straight forward in terms of a criminal losing a right of privacy due to inviting another into his life. Wages of theft you could call it.

tptacek 10y ago
It seems like the answer would be, of course you can, in the same way that you can illegally wiretap a bathroom by leaving your own cameras in it. As with all these things, the issue probably comes mostly down to intent.
- sbuttgereit 10y ago
  Your bathroom example ignores the most important contextual point at play in the case at hand and therefore must be discarded as a criticism. Ignore the essentials and you can make a case for any action one way or the other: a silly, nonsensical case, but a case. My comments where in context dealing with criminal and a victim. I made clear that the voluntary actions of the criminal are what made the subsequent actions of the victim justifiable as the victim didn't relinquish rights to his property. In your example the phone owner is the voluntary actor and the unwitting person coming after is the involuntary victim. Naturally the cases aren't on par.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    In the bathroom video example, even if a criminal breaks into your house and uses your bathroom, you can't just upload the video to YouTube.
    - jjeaff 10y ago
      Are you sure about that? Do you have an example of someone getting prosecuted for posting security footage of someone breaking into their own home? Not a chance, whe there the footage is the front porch or the bathroom. It's all about expectation of privacy. You are not protected from invasion of privacy in a public place, because there is no expectation of privacy there. And I expect a jury would also find that there is no expectation of privacy when you break into someones home and use the bathroom or steal their phone/camera and take it to your own home.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        Expectation of privacy is an US concept, not universal law. It doesn't apply in the EU. Here you are protected from invasion of privacy in a public place.
        jjeaff 10y ago
        The fact that you lump the EU into one statement seems to indicate that you don't really know what you are talking about. In the UK it is explicitly legal to take photographs of people in public places without their permission as long as the act can not be construed as harassment (which is similar here). But I don't know about the many other countries in the EU, I suspect they all have their own laws as well.
        icebraining 10y ago
        I'm talking about the EU Data Protection directives and the subsequence CJEU rulings (like [1]). Last time I checked, the UK was still part of the EU. And I'm not saying you can't take photographs in public places. What I'm saying is that the binary concept of "expectation of privacy" doesn't apply in the EU. Even in the street there are some protections, such as from CCTVs [2]: This means that cameras attached to a private individual’s home may, in certain circumstances, no longer be exempt from the requirements of the DPA under section 36. Those circumstances are likely to include where the camera monitors any area beyond the interior and exterior limits of that individual’s home. This would include any camera to the extent that it covered, even partially, a public space such as the pavement or street. (...) If you have set up a live streaming camera available to the public so that they can, for example, assess which route to take on their journey to work based on the level of congestion, you should ensure that it is appropriately zoomed out so that individuals cannot be identified. If individuals can be identified then this will need to be justified and shown to be necessary and proportionate. [1] http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-protection-home-cjeu.html http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-prote... [2] https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf
pg314 10y ago
Can you illegally wiretap your own device? I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me yes. The thief's right to privacy is being invaded. It's not because he broke the law that he suddenly no longer has any rights. Just like you can't shoot somebody just because he broke into your house (in Europe; I'm aware of the castle doctrine). Also, you don't get to mete out the punishment if you're wronged, that's the role of the judiciary.
- remarkEon 10y ago
  >The thief's right to privacy is being invaded. This seems to imply the owner's right to "access" their device ends at the moment of theft (or loss of physical retention of the device). I don't think that's clear. I'm not aware of any case law that deals with this, however, and it could be something we see in the future as, say, self driving cars get stolen and someone can remotely access the dashcam. (I am also not a lawyer, so if there are any actual lawyers reading please chime in as I think this is a super interesting topic.)
  - pg314 10y ago
    This seems to imply the owner's right to "access" their device ends at the moment of theft. I don't think it implies that. But the two rights are in conflict and need to be balanced. One does not automatically override the other in all circumstances. It would probably ok to access the phone to locate it, but spying on the thief like in the video seems to clearly cross the line of legality. Of course, this also depends on the jurisdiction...
  - icebraining 10y ago
    The owner's right to record stuff is not absolute even if he was in possession of the device. You can't freely install a CCTV outside your home, for example.
    - douche 10y ago
      > You can't install a CCTV outside your home, for example. Interesting. I wonder where on the spectrum things like trail cameras fall - those have become ubiquitous with hunters as motion sensors, flash storage and digital and IR camera technology has gotten cheap.

tptacek 10y ago

It seems like the answer would be, of course you can, in the same way that you can illegally wiretap a bathroom by leaving your own cameras in it. As with all these things, the issue probably comes mostly down to intent.

sbuttgereit 10y ago
Your bathroom example ignores the most important contextual point at play in the case at hand and therefore must be discarded as a criticism. Ignore the essentials and you can make a case for any action one way or the other: a silly, nonsensical case, but a case. My comments where in context dealing with criminal and a victim. I made clear that the voluntary actions of the criminal are what made the subsequent actions of the victim justifiable as the victim didn't relinquish rights to his property. In your example the phone owner is the voluntary actor and the unwitting person coming after is the involuntary victim. Naturally the cases aren't on par.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  In the bathroom video example, even if a criminal breaks into your house and uses your bathroom, you can't just upload the video to YouTube.
  - jjeaff 10y ago
    Are you sure about that? Do you have an example of someone getting prosecuted for posting security footage of someone breaking into their own home? Not a chance, whe there the footage is the front porch or the bathroom. It's all about expectation of privacy. You are not protected from invasion of privacy in a public place, because there is no expectation of privacy there. And I expect a jury would also find that there is no expectation of privacy when you break into someones home and use the bathroom or steal their phone/camera and take it to your own home.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      Expectation of privacy is an US concept, not universal law. It doesn't apply in the EU. Here you are protected from invasion of privacy in a public place.
      - jjeaff 10y ago
        The fact that you lump the EU into one statement seems to indicate that you don't really know what you are talking about. In the UK it is explicitly legal to take photographs of people in public places without their permission as long as the act can not be construed as harassment (which is similar here). But I don't know about the many other countries in the EU, I suspect they all have their own laws as well.
        icebraining 10y ago
        I'm talking about the EU Data Protection directives and the subsequence CJEU rulings (like [1]). Last time I checked, the UK was still part of the EU. And I'm not saying you can't take photographs in public places. What I'm saying is that the binary concept of "expectation of privacy" doesn't apply in the EU. Even in the street there are some protections, such as from CCTVs [2]: This means that cameras attached to a private individual’s home may, in certain circumstances, no longer be exempt from the requirements of the DPA under section 36. Those circumstances are likely to include where the camera monitors any area beyond the interior and exterior limits of that individual’s home. This would include any camera to the extent that it covered, even partially, a public space such as the pavement or street. (...) If you have set up a live streaming camera available to the public so that they can, for example, assess which route to take on their journey to work based on the level of congestion, you should ensure that it is appropriately zoomed out so that individuals cannot be identified. If individuals can be identified then this will need to be justified and shown to be necessary and proportionate. [1] http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-protection-home-cjeu.html http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-prote... [2] https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf

pg314 10y ago

Can you illegally wiretap your own device? I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me yes. The thief's right to privacy is being invaded. It's not because he broke the law that he suddenly no longer has any rights. Just like you can't shoot somebody just because he broke into your house (in Europe; I'm aware of the castle doctrine). Also, you don't get to mete out the punishment if you're wronged, that's the role of the judiciary.

remarkEon 10y ago
>The thief's right to privacy is being invaded. This seems to imply the owner's right to "access" their device ends at the moment of theft (or loss of physical retention of the device). I don't think that's clear. I'm not aware of any case law that deals with this, however, and it could be something we see in the future as, say, self driving cars get stolen and someone can remotely access the dashcam. (I am also not a lawyer, so if there are any actual lawyers reading please chime in as I think this is a super interesting topic.)
- pg314 10y ago
  This seems to imply the owner's right to "access" their device ends at the moment of theft. I don't think it implies that. But the two rights are in conflict and need to be balanced. One does not automatically override the other in all circumstances. It would probably ok to access the phone to locate it, but spying on the thief like in the video seems to clearly cross the line of legality. Of course, this also depends on the jurisdiction...
- icebraining 10y ago
  The owner's right to record stuff is not absolute even if he was in possession of the device. You can't freely install a CCTV outside your home, for example.
  - douche 10y ago
    > You can't install a CCTV outside your home, for example. Interesting. I wonder where on the spectrum things like trail cameras fall - those have become ubiquitous with hunters as motion sensors, flash storage and digital and IR camera technology has gotten cheap.