surveillance
Legalities of checking someone&#39;s digital footprint
<p>Where is the boundary between checking someone's digital footprint, and stalking?</p>
<p>More specifically here is the hypothetical scenario.</p>
<p>My name is A. My friend 's name is B.</p>
<p>B goes to a bar in country C. Meets a woman W. Takes her to a hotel, and gets robbed by her accomplices.</p>
<p>Now, I have another friend D. I tell him the story. So when D visits country C, he also meets the self same W (we are doing hypotheticals). He was smart enough to ask W's Instagram. I check W's Instagram and find a picture of a Man M. I do a reverse google image search on M and W, and find out that both of them are convicted criminals in country C.</p>
<p>Q1: <em>Will this count as stalking, if I am in Washington State, of USA, whereas C is a different country?</em></p>
<p>Q2: Now, had I used an AI to methodically scan and check every picture of W's Instagram, locate her facebook, and Twitter and other social media, will that be stalking?</p>
<p>Q3: If I have a database hosted in a server farm in the territory of USA, of all possible people, and I offer regular services to my friends (in exchange of money) about digital background and footprints of people (wherein I am absolutely sure that these friends are only concerned about their own safety and not trying to attack anyone), will that be legally permissible?</p>

<p>&quot;Checking someone's digital footprint&quot; could be stalking, depending on the circumstances. The better question to ask is about the legality of a certain action, and not the specific name used in a jurisdiction (although indeed in Washington there is a defined crime of &quot;stalking&quot;). I don't know what you mean by &quot;checking someone's digital footprint&quot;, and it is not defined by law.</p>
<p>Looking at <a href="https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9a.46&amp;full=true" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RCW 9a.46.110</a>, we can first discern that it does not matter for the definition of the crime where these people live or where the robbery took place. If two people from Alberta travel to Alaska and harass or murder a person from Texas, Washington law does not enter into the equation. The crime that you're asking about is the snooping, so for Washington to have jurisdiction, the snooping has to be &quot;in&quot; Washington. That does not mean that both parties have to be in Washington – there can be complex jurisdictional laws if the accused is in another state or country. The accused can easily be prosecuted in his own state, he can also be prosecuted in a foreign country, if he is caught there or if he is extradited to that country.</p>
<p>For the act to be stalking, the first element is that &quot;He or she intentionally and repeatedly harasses or repeatedly follows another person; and...&quot;. Harassment is defined in that section as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person
which seriously alarms, annoys, harasses, or is detrimental to such
person, and which serves no legitimate or lawful purpose. The course
of conduct shall be such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer
substantial emotional distress, and shall actually cause substantial
emotional distress to the petitioner, or when the course of conduct
would cause a reasonable parent to fear for the well-being of his or
her child.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since there was no communication between the parties, there is no harassment in the legal sense. There is no &quot;following&quot; either, therefore the act fails to constitute stalking w.r.t the first elements. Since the crime is defined by a conjunction of elements and your scenario fails on the first conjunct, it is not &quot;stalking&quot; (it is also not &quot;harassment&quot; as defined in RCW    9A.46.020, 9A.46.060.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Where is the boundary between checking someone's digital footprint, and stalking?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.46.110&amp;pdf=true" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Section 9A.46.110</a>(1) of the Revised Code of Washington defines stalking as (1) the intentional and repeated act of harassing or following another person, thereby (2) placing the harassed or followed person &quot;<em>in [reasonable] fear that the stalker intends to injure the person, another person, or [anyone's] property</em>&quot;, and where (3) frightening, intimidating, or harassing the person was the harasser's intent and/or that outcome was reasonably foreseeable to the harasser.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, none of the scenarios you outline in Q1-Q3 can place a person in reasonable fear of injury. The person or algorithm conducting a search is doing nothing to the searched person, who usually will not be even aware of the search. The search complies with the statutory premise of <em>lawful authority</em> insofar as the data was obtained from social media rather than by means of fraudulent or unauthorized access.</p>
