A 37-year-old Ontario teacher of special needs students at the Ashley Oakes public school is facing 21 charges of voyeurism after a hidden camera was discovered in a backpack in a staff changing room. Charges were levied against Jamie Gardiner after London, Ontario police examined the discovered video equipment and found videos of two female…
On April 2, 2015, the North Dakota House of Representatives spent roughly 90 minutes debating whether the state should add “sexual orientation” to existing state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, physical or mental disability or status with respect to marriage or public assistance.” The measure,…
According to the Polaris Project, one of the leading organizations in the battle against human trafficking, cases occur in every one of the nation’s fifty states. Even tiny Vermont, not typically thought of as a front-line location for human trafficking, has seen trafficking cases involving the sex trade, farming, and restaurants. Dustin Duncan, an assistant…
A 21-year-old Brooklyn woman plead guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to charges that she recruited young women through Facebook to work as prostitutes in high-roller sex parties. Tatiana Daniel admitted to U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Go that she recruited girls as young as 14, in part…
This message needs to be spread far and wide: People in the United States have the right to videotape the actions of government employees in public spaces. As I noted in an earlier post, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has published a useful summary of the rights of citizens to record interactions with…
For the last couple of years, tech writers (including yours truly) have been warning that Internet-connected baby monitors are vulnerable to hacking. In 2013, for instance, the Chinese-manufactured Foscam brand was found to have a glaring security hole that allowed hackers to gain access to the audio and video feeds transmitted by the cameras. Forbes…
Each year, the American Library Association celebrates “Choose Privacy Week” from May 1 to May 7. According to a blog post by Michael Robinson, the Chair of the ALA-IFC Privacy Subcommittee, this year’s theme is “Who’s Reading the Reader”: It feels like online privacy has taken a step closer to center stage in libraryland in…
My 30th College Renuion was held at Amherst College at the end of May, and I had the honor of being asked to participate in a panel discussion about the risks facing teens today. Here’s the description from the College Web site: Protecting Vulnerable Adolescents: Cyber-Bullying, Sports-Related Concussions and Other Tough Stuff Saturday, May 30,…
Last month, a young woman in Limerick, PA discovered a digital camera hidden in the bathroom of her home. Suspicion quickly focused on a family acquaintance named Kevin Martin Rebbie, 56. When he was interviewed by investigators, Rebbie allegedly confessed that he had purchased the camera to make video recordings of the girl showering and…
Over at Slate, writer Amanda Hess (@amandahess) has a great overview of the issues arising from the use of social media content in the courtroom. These days, victims of workplace discrimination or horrific accidents or sexual assaults who seek damages for emotional distress or loss of enjoyment of life can now expect their online profiles…
