Invasion of Privacy
Depending on the circumstances and how one is defining an “invasion of privacy,” it can be considered a crime but is not always dealt with as such. An invasion of privacy occurs when a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy is violated, but whether or not it is considered a crime is dependent on many things.
In today’s age of social media and people regularly using their apps to send what they think are private messages, and to post what they think are private photos and thoughts for a selected group of friends to see, what constitutes privacy may not be readily apparent. Nowadays, most places of business, schools, and other organizations have security and surveillance cameras on their property, and private citizens have them in their homes. Even though footage from these devices is not supposed to be used for anything other than what they were installed to do, it has been used in nefarious ways.. Regulations and requirements for operating drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can carry video and surveillance cameras differ depending on the the location and purpose of them but many people who are not licensed or technically allowed to operate them, do so anyways. These things along with a constant influx of new technologies into mainstream society, have complicated what constitutes privacy and whether or not it is a crime.
One way of describing what constitutes an invasion of privacy is, when there is an intrusion upon your reasonable expectation to be left alone. In the United States, invasion of privacy is a tort (a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm) that allows an aggrieved person to bring a lawsuit against an individual for any one or more of the following reasons:
– Intrusion of Solitude
– Appropriation of Name or Likeness
– Public Disclosure of Private Facts
– False Light
If you are unsure of whether or not your issue of your privacy constitutes a crime, a good invasion of privacy lawyer that is licensed to practice in the state where you feel like your privacy was invaded, can help you to determine whether or not it is a crime.
Intrusion of Solitude
If an intrusion upon a person’s solitude or private affairs is considered highly offensive to a reasonable person, it may be subject to liability.
Appropriation of Name or Likeness
This tort is similar to property rights in that, a person’s name and what they look like are their own personal property that is not supposed to be used for profit by others without the owner’s explicit permission. If this happens, the party or parties that did this may be responsible to pay the owner for damages. This can happen to anyone but more typically, these issues come up for celebrities, politicians, different kinds of leaders, and other people who have made a conscious decision that they will likely be in the public spotlight on a regular basis.
Public Disclosure of Private Facts
This type of invasion of privacy is not the same as defamation because it is dealing with truths about someone as opposed to lies about them. An individual may be liable for revealing truthful but private information about a person if a reasonable person would find it offensive if it were to be made public.
False Light
A false light claim is similar to defamation but it is not exactly the same thing. False light allows a person to sue someone or an entity that publicly discloses their private information in a way that is misleading but not technically false.
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