A number of recent lawsuits have been filed based on something known as “the pen register theory.” But what are pen registers? One of the surveillance tools commonly used by law enforcement to spy on suspects is the pen register, which allows police to capture phone numbers that were dialed on outgoing calls. Increasingly, these devices are being used by businesses to reveal the content of communications on websites, which poses a very real privacy concern for consumers.
Invasion of privacy has become a major concern for consumers who frequent websites and make purchases online. That’s because many companies are now using pen registers and trap devices, which may include website cookies, web beacons, script, software code, and other types of software to track user data. While both federal and California law provide strong protections for consumers in these situations, pen registers vs. trap and trace devices is still a distinction that needs to be understood before speaking to a consumer fraud lawyer.
Los Angeles law firm Tauler Smith LLP recently filed a trap and trace class action against United HealthCare. The national health insurance provider has been accused of collaborating with controversial social media company TikTok to unlawfully collect data from website visitors. These actions would constitute clear violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), which prohibits companies from using website tracking software to gather personal information about customers.
California’s trap and trace law protects consumers against the unauthorized tracking of their activity online. For law enforcement, securing a court order to intercept communications is difficult because there are strict limitations on this type of activity. Yet, for companies with websites, it has become far too easy to acquire customer data in the same invasive manner without any authorization or consent.