EDITORIAL: Georgia privacy legislation catching up with technology

The Georgia Senate has passed — and the Georgia House should follow suit — privacy legislation that many people may not know is needed.

This is another case where technology has moved faster than what should be an individual’s right to privacy.

On Wednesday, state senators unanimously passed Senate Bill 45, which would, once it is signed into law, outlaw so-called “up-skirt” pictures and their ilk from being secretly taken. Sibling legislation in the form of House Bill 9 is working its way through the state House.

The act as passed by the Senate would drop a hammer on the lewd practice, making it a felony punishable by up for five years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Why is this needed?

Last year, a conviction against an individual in Houston County accused of invasion of privacy was overturned by the Georgia Court of Appeals. The defendant, a grocery clerk, had used his cell phone to secretly take videos beneath a woman’s skirt while she shopped in the grocery store.

The Appellate Court found that Georgia laws — passed before the digital revolution and the incorporation of camera and video features on cellphones — used to prosecute such cases didn’t apply. Lawmakers at the time had no idea that technology would be what it is today. The court found — as unbelievable as it may sound — that no specific law in Georgia prohibits a person from victimizing your wife, daughter, girlfriend or significant other by clandestinely photographing or videoing an area of her body that, in any reasonable society, is considered private.

Under SB 45, the Official Code of Georgia would be amended to “prohibit the use of a device to film under or through a person’s clothing under certain circumstances,” those being circumstances in which an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The bill states it “shall be unlawful for any individual to, knowingly and without the consent of the person observed, use or install a device for the purpose of surreptitiously observing, photographing, videotaping, filming, or video recording such person under or through such person’s clothing, for the purpose of viewing the intimate parts of the body of or the undergarments worn by such person, under circumstances in which such person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, regardless of whether such act occurs in a public place. It shall be unlawful to disseminate any image or recording with knowledge that it was taken or obtained in violation” of the law.

SB 45 has two exceptions. One is for law enforcement and prosecution agencies in the investigation and prosecution of criminal offenses. The second is for a retailer that surveils a customer changing room, but a conspicuous signage is required to warn a customer that he or she is under the retailer’s surveillance.

In our digital age, we find our right to privacy is under constant threat. A woman simply should not have to worry whether intimate images of her will show up on social media because she went shopping for groceries, walked up steps, sat on bleachers at a sporting event or used a restroom facility. This is one keyhole of perversion that should be locked immediately.