Police Department Posts DUI Arrest Names and Mug Shots on Facebook
August 25, 2010 – 9:48 am
It isn’t unheard of for law enforcement agencies to use Twitter and Facebook to broadcast their activities, and in California, the Huntington Beach PD is considering naming DUI suspects on its website. However, a New Jersey police department went one step further by using its Facebook page to post the names and mug shots of people arrested for DUI. Fortunately, the department has now taken down this page, while it considers the legalities involved.
The Evesham Township Police Department Facebook page has been around for about six months now, but the department only recently began posting DUI arrest information. According to the folks at the PD, this was done to put a face and a name to these arrests, and provide the public important information. It wasn’t just Los Angeles criminal defense lawyers who found this completely inappropriate and highly objectionable. Several legal experts have also spoken about such postings being bad policy, and not entirely appropriate for a Police Department.
The ETPD has now taken down the page, while it weighs in on whether this is legal at all. It seems to DUI lawyers in Los Angeles that the authorities here should have considered the legalities of this before posting the mug shots online.
There are definitely privacy concerns here. Facebook allows pictures to be tagged by your friends, and the potential for humiliation, embarrassment and long-term damage from having people tagging these photographs, is immense. There is also one tiny point that the ETPD seems to have forgotten. Persons whose photographs are posted on the Facebook page, have only been arrested for DUI, and have not been convicted.
Unfortunately, social media has made it possible for law enforcement agencies to rush to judgment and announce punishments, even before a person has been convicted for an offense. Just a few months back, a prosecutor in Texas who began a practice of posting the names of persons arrested for DUI on his Twitter feed. These are dangerous trends, and while criminal defense attorneys in Los Angeles will have no problem with law enforcement agencies using social media sites to enhance their activities, they must object when these activities interfere with citizens’ rights to due process.
You must be logged in to post a comment.