News & Commentary

A seven-year legal battle over privacy rights in the home, fought by ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorneys in a case that went all to the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, ended today with the filing of a settlement in the case of Cranston resident Edward Caniglia.

The Providence Police Department is actively pursuing the installation of ALPR camera systems throughout the city.

The ACLU of RI has sent a letter today to RIPTA demanding answers regarding an August 2021 data breach at the agency that compromised the Social Security numbers and private health care information of thousands of individuals who have no apparent connection to the agency.

Is the R.I. Department of Labor and Training (DLT) planning to use facial recognition technology to process unemployment claims? The agency doesn’t want the public to know, so the ACLU of Rhode Island today filed an open records lawsuit to find out. The suit is in response to the DLT’s refusal to provide the ACLU any documents in response to an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request that sought records related to the agency’s “actual or considered usage of facial recognition and identify verification software … in the course of processing unemployment claims.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a court brief seeking to beat back an effort to overturn a state law that protects an individual’s right to an abortion.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today called on the city councils in Cranston, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket to direct their respective police departments to halt the use of automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology leased from the company Flock Safety. In a letter sent to the city council and mayor of each municipality, the ACLU expressed concerns about the serious privacy issues such technologies can pose to all residents and noted that these systems were inappropriately installed on a trial basis in the absence of any public notice, input or statutory guidance.

These are not decisions that should be unilaterally made by law enforcement. The public should have a say about whether they want potentially invasive and discriminatory technologies in their neighborhoods.

The ACLU has called on Mayor Elorza and Commissioner of Public Safety Paré to address the “constitutionally suspect procedural shortcuts” that it took last week in an attempt to oust the people living in a homeless encampment on Wilson Street in PVD.

In an important victory for privacy rights, the U.S Supreme Court today unanimously rejected police arguments that engaging in a non-criminal “community caretaking” function allows them to search a person’s home without a warrant.