Another college is in the news, accused of mishandling a rape case. A female student at Old Dominion University who reported that she was raped in her own dorm room says she was denied a medical exam until after campus police had interrogated her for eight hours. The assault took place in October 2014 at the Old Dominion University campus in Virginia. Late Wednesday, the woman’s lawyer, Laura Dunn, filed a complaint against the university, accusing the school of mishandling the case and violating federal law.

The woman, who was not named in the complaint obtained by the Associated Press, wrote that she booked an appointment at a local medical center to get an exam after she was assaulted. But when she told campus police about what happened, officers wouldn’t let her leave. They took her to their department where they denied her food, water, and bathroom breaks. They interrogated her for eight hours, asking questions like “do you like rough sex?” and saying, “I’m just trying to find the crime here,” implying that it was her own fault that she was raped.

My alma mater is out here treating rape victims like criminals. And y’all wonder why people don’t come forward. #ODU https://t.co/SJT4MsCZ33

— Kris (@thatkblife) October 14, 2016

The way the campus police treated the student caused her stress and anxiety disorders. “After the entire day of being victimized by your police department, I was left feeling paranoid and scared as if I was the criminal,” she wrote in a personal statement attached to the complaint. The man, who was not a student at the university, was never charged with a crime.

Said it before and I’ll say it again, college “police departments” should be banned. https://t.co/eWseSI028R

— Bryan Beal (@bryanrbeal) October 14, 2016

The complaint accuses the school of violating federal law by not informing the woman of the importance of preserving evidence by getting a forensic exam right away–which she wanted to do, but wasn’t allowed–and not letting her know that she had the right to not report the incident to police until after being examined. She was also not informed that she could seek a protective order against the man, what her counseling options were, or the possibility to change her living situation. She was not even allowed to move out from the dorm where the assault took place until after getting a diagnosis from a psychologist. The school also failed to add the assault to the school’s “crime log” until after a reporter asked about it.

“This validated to me that Old Dominion University never took my sexual assault seriously and does not care for me as one of their students,” she wrote.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Old Dominion Student Who Reported Rape Was Interrogated for 8 Hours appeared first on Law Street.

Does privacy even exist in the digital world these days? Many argue no, as more and more companies use elaborate software to track their customers’ precise locations, spending habits, facial features, and shopping preferences. Uber is just the latest company to come under fire for going “big brother” on its customers.

Uber recently announced a plan to track customers through the app, even if the user shuts it off, deletes it, and even turns off the GPS function. Last Monday, a formal complaint was filed against Uber by the nonprofit research group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Washington, DC. This was done in an effort to get the agency to prohibit the taxi-service company from instituting these new changes.

Uber will soon be able to track your location even if you exit the app and have GPS turned off http://t.co/RZUN2EaMej pic.twitter.com/StttNhjVqr

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) June 23, 2015

These new updates are expected to take effect around July 15th, a decision that Uber announced on May 28th, although not without some serious uproar.

If you are an Uber user, your every move will soon be able to be tracked; this revelation has left many customers on edge. What’s most appalling about this update is that it will let the company trace not only the whereabouts of its customers, but also everywhere that they’ve ever traveled while they’ve had the app on their phones. This is a major issue that people have with this update since the company will retain all the past location data of its consumers, with no indication when this information will be deleted, if ever.

Despite the backlash over this new policy, Uber stated that there is no support for these allegations made by EPIC. It claims that these changes in data collection are being done solely to help Uber optimize its services so that it can improve customer satisfaction. The company believes that it is completely necessary to track its customers’ every move in order to provide optimal services with shorter wait times. Uber does not see any problems with this new update, nor any truth in the many complaints against it. It also claims that its customers’ privacy is of its utmost concern.

Uber has a reputation for breaching the privacy of its customers, as this is not the first time that the app has been criticized by the public. It has encountered numerous lawsuits lately, such as when it was accused of tracking a customer without first receiving consent, cheating customers, and failing to meet local regulations in the United States.

Despite there being some extreme opposition to this change in the privacy policy of the app, there are some people who see the benefits of it. Some state that since this update has the potential to drastically change a customer’s experience so it is worth the hassle. This update would likely help Uber to figure out where most of its customers are so it can concentrate drivers in the most popular areas.

Uber remains one of the growing giants of the tech industry, it has been valued at $40 billion even though it was created only six years ago, and it continues to grow at absurd rates. For a company that is still so new, it is imperative for it to maintain its following and to keep the public’s interest. It currently provides millions of trips a day for users across the globe, and so the last thing Uber wants to do is upset its loyal customers.

Infringing on people’s privacy can be quite daunting, especially for those who have secrets to hide. Americans today are very conscious of their security, and so the thought of a company having access to your exact location at all times can seem frightening. Uber claims that it will give all customers the option of whether or not to report their location data back to the company, however, this choice will not be possible to disable on all phones.

Not only will this new update track customers’ locations, but it will also access users’ contact lists upon approval. Uber is doing this so that it can send promotions to riders’ friends and family, and to also implement its improved “split fare” feature. Communicating with a person’s contacts in such a manner might even be breaking a federal law, which states that a company can’t call or text people without first getting written permission.

It seems that Uber tried to keep the implications of this new update under the radar, although EPIC is not about to let it slide for violating its customers’ fundamental rights to privacy. The group is outraged at this new policy change, as it stated that it finds it to be a threat to people’s overall safety and privacy rights, it could create a substantial risk of harm for customers, and that it would “constitute an unfair and deceptive trade practice.”

Don’t people have the right to feel secure within their own devices? In an age where virtually anything can be found or performed online, people want to feel like their privacy is always being protected. There is currently no word as to whether the FTC will investigate the claims made by EPIC, although it might have to as this story continues to develop and gain publicity.

Toni Keddell

Toni Keddell is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Toni at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Uber Users: Beware of Tracking Software appeared first on Law Street.

The right to disappear has become increasingly en vogue. In Europe, the movement has particular strength as the European Union passed directives protecting it, and European courts have challenged large corporations to comply with the law.

The right to disappear basically attempts to preserve an individual’s control over information on the internet about himself. There are multiple variations, but it might, for example, allow a user to remove an unsavory article about herself on Google, or it may allow her to erase potentially damaging photographs from Facebook.

In the context of the internet, however, can information actually disappear? Does information on the internet resemble a sheet of paper that can disintegrate forever in a fire, or a tiny piece of silver incapable of actual destruction? In the U.S., a recent FTC complaint against Snapchat provides an interesting angle to explore this issue.

In a sense, the company leveraged the massive support for this right to be forgotten when it devised its own application. Social media usually insinuates some sort of public sharing, but SnapChat twisted the concept to include a more discreet form of connecting. SnapChat mushroomed into one of the most popular phone applications due to the transient nature of activity on the platform. While users still connect via the internet, the communications on SnapChat are intended to evaporate within ten seconds. SnapChat is the reverse of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and most other social media sites, in that SnapChat communications leave no cyber footprint. The app seemed to offer a way to use social media while still preserving one’s right to disappear.

Unfortunately, SnapChats don’t actually disappear as easily as the company claimed, according to a recent Federal Trade Communication complaint asserting that SnapChat did not properly inform its users that their SnapChats may be permanently saved and stored by other users.

The FTC complaint highlights that on the SnapChat’s FAQ, the company misstated that snapchats will permanently delete. The FAQ reads:

Q: Is there any way to view an image after the time has expired?
A: No, snaps disappear after the timer runs out

The FTC notes that users can easily screenshot the snapchat to permanently save it. Additionally, the complaint explains how to circumvent Snapchat’s policy of informing the sender if the recipient screenshot the snapchat: if a user on an iPhone quickly hits the device’s home button after taking a screenshot, the SnapChat application will close before informing the sender that the image has been saved. Thus, the FTC hammered down on SnapChat for its overly hyperbolic claim that users cannot save snapchats.

Importantly, this ruling highlights something crucial about the internet: it may prove impossible for information passed via the internet to ever truly disappear. Moreover, companies might face penalty if they claim to offer such a service.

What does this mean for the practicality of a right to disappear? Suppose, for example, that Google takes legitimate steps to remove information about a European citizen after he invokes his European right to disappear. The efficacy of Google’s actions depends on the objective nature of information on the Internet. Does information on the internet resemble a piece of silver or a piece of paper? One will incinerate in a fire, the other will not. What if Google does what it can to bury the information – the piece of silver — but it resurfaces? Can a user sue Google?

In the age of the internet, do we actually have a right to disappear? Or, should we more accurately label it a right to hide a bit better, because all we can legitimately do is frustrate efforts to find the information that will always exist somewhere?

—

Imran Ahmed is a law student and writer living in New York City whose blog explores the legal implications of social media and the internet. Contact him via email here.

Featured image courtesy of [Search Influence via Flickr]

Imran Ahmed

Imran Ahmed is a writer living in New York. Contact Imran at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post SnapChat SNAFU Proves Relevance of Europe’s Right to Disappear Laws appeared first on Law Street.

On October 22, 2013, the New York Times ran an article describing the various problems that have accompanied the roll out of a central tenet of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), www.HealthCare.gov.   The gist of the article focuses on the technical issues that the public has encountered when trying to shop the online marketplace for health insurance.  Essentially, the volume of interested potential buyers has diminished the ease with which the site was to be navigated.

Because of the apparently gargantuan inconvenience of a website loading slowly, there is a large demand for apologies from all levels of the government, starting with President Obama and trickling down to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Indeed, after our government’s united front in reopening the government (after a shutdown that was their fault) and subsequent dangerous proximity to reaching the debt ceiling, it was shocking that Speaker of the House John Boehner called for the Obama Administration to answer questions related to the flaws in the website’s launch.

That was sarcasm, friends.

Because a glitch in a website visited by thousands of people a day is totally a reason to delay or repeal the availability of health insurance.  That’s also sarcasm.

These problems are called growing pains! Are they annoying? Absolutely.  But they happen- there is no need to make a mountain out of a molehill.  Especially when you consider what Americans stand to gain from the Affordable Care Act.  With health insurance, more people can visit their primary care physicians for routine physicals and for small aches and pains.  It’s often small aches that turn into large medical problems.  Large medical problems lead to large medical bills.  Similarly, there are catastrophic events.  Nobody plans to get hit by a bus on their way to work.  Nobody plans to be in a car accident.  These catastrophes happen, and health insurance provides a buffer of security the necessity of which is not always readily apparent.  When you’re in the thick of medical debt, though, you wind up kicking yourself for not taking advantage of small monthly insurance payments.  The utility of medical insurance, and the costs of that insurance, can be exponentially less than the cost of catastrophic care.  Emergency room visits by the uninsured, for example, have frequently been cited as one of the primary reasons for high costs of healthcare.

This all seems unnecessary considering the fact that we’re in the world’s super power, and that there are concrete examples of how a government-mandated expansion of healthcare can thrive (take France or Sweden, for example).

Do you guys know what this is called?  It’s called a stall tactic.  It’s also called a diversion.  This “controversial” roll out of the website is meant to distract you from what’s really going on.

“Well, what’s really going on?”

Oh nothing, just thousands of people being presented with an opportunity to have a primary care physician for the first time.

Just decisions about your health being ripped from the sole decision of a private insurance company that is more concerned with their bottom line than a rash on your arm.

At the end of the day, the website problems are frustrating, but they are not insurmountable.  The failure of a website to run as efficiently as we would prefer is certainly not a reason to engage in protracted political debates, especially after being so closely linked to a sixteen day protracted political debate that left hundreds of thousands of people out of work.  Health care, for now is debatable (it shouldn’t be, but it is).  Two things that are not debatable are the necessity for protections against the unpredictable occurrences in life and the inconvenience of a website that will eventually help thousands of people.

[New York Times]

—

Featured image courtesy of [Daniel Borman via Flickr]

Peter Davidson II

Peter Davidson is a recent law school graduate who rants about news & politics and raves over the ups & downs of FUNemployment in the current legal economy. Contact Peter at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Everyone, Let’s Lay Off the Obamacare Online Marketplace? appeared first on Law Street.