EPIC: Strict Judicial Scrutiny Wrong Approach in Daniel’s Law Case
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) argued this week that opponents of New Jersey's Daniel's Law, which protects judicial and law enforcement personnel's private information, would use First Amendment grounds to oppose almost all privacy measures.
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In an amicus brief supporting Daniel’s Law, EPIC said viewing the measure with "strict [judicial] scrutiny" is the wrong approach and would "render all data protection laws presumptively unconstitutional, no matter the factual context in which the law is applied."
Instead of that sweeping approach, “Supreme Court precedent strongly favors case-by-case review of the constitutionality of statutes, particularly in the privacy context,” the brief said, advocating for intermediate scrutiny in the 3rd Circuit case.
Enacted in 2020, Daniel's Law allows covered judicial and law enforcement personnel to request their information be deleted from data brokers; however, opponents say this violates the First Amendment (see 2504040031). EPIC, in a LinkedIn post Wednesday, countered that the information Daniel's Law protects is not speech itself, but could be used for speech.
Atlas Data Privacy, a data removal service and the case's plaintiff, has filed a slew of lawsuits against data brokers since Daniel's Law was amended in 2023, allowing third parties to bring cases on behalf of covered persons. Some privacy lawyers said this is an abuse of the statute.
Atlas opposed a motion to dismiss the case earlier in May on the grounds that it cleared identified allegations that sufficiently established all necessary elements of a Daniel’s Law claim (see 2505060061).