The Four Ways Your Privacy Can Be Violated – And What You Can Do About It
In an increasingly digital world, the solitude of personal information is increasingly being invaded.
Often a person will be asked to provide information about where they are located or what they have clicked on their personal device. Often people unknowingly agree to provide it. (Ever read the terms of service to a website or application when you first encounter it? (We have.)) Both the federal and South Carolina Constitutions protect against the invasion of areas and information where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. While these constitutional rights apply specifically to government actions like police searches, these privacy principles are older than our nation and state.
Under the court-made law resulting from cases, there exist four types of lawsuits that can be brought for damages from an invasion of privacy:
Intrusion – the physical or digital entering of a place of solitude causing damage;
Public Disclosure of Private Facts – if information is taken from a place where a person had a reasonable expectation of privacy and the info is not otherwise publicly important, damages can be awarded;
Misappropriation – if a person’s likeness or things they have created are being used by another, without their consent, they may be entitled to compensation for their use;
False Light – similar to defamation (which Meriwether Law also practices), a false light lawsuit concerns the fictionalization of an experience a person has within a private place that presents that person in an inaccurate light to the world, causing them damage.
Meriwether Law has experience with privacy suits. If you’ve been damaged by an invasion of privacy, let’s see if we can help.