Does expungement of a case refer to online history? When a court's expungement order stipulates that all entities with related data to the case, and data collection and data reseller companies destroy any and all records related to a case; does this mean the private online person search sites must destroy all references to the cases that were expunged? Or do I need to reach out to each of these individual “background search” sites to request that their information be updated to reflect the order?
In all likelihood, the judge's order related to data collection and reselling is not legally enforceable. They weren't parties to the expungement action, so the judge doesn't have jurisdiction over them. And, the First Amendment protects the right to say truthful things pretty absolutely. Arguably, if the sites provided the information without making clear that it might not be current because records were expunged or corrected, there might be a claim for negligent misrepresentation, false light, or even defamation, but I seriously doubt that even those claims would hold up. The language in the order might cause sites to comply out of not legally justified concern, or just a desire to be accurate, even if it is not enforceable. So, it doesn't hurt to bring that information to the attention of such sites and ask them to take down the information. But, when push comes to shove, I very much doubt that you would prevail in court enforcing that order against them. Certainly, if you do nothing, they will do nothing, because they are not psychic and have no idea that the court order related to those records has been entered. Even a valid and enforceable order directed at a party over whom a court has jurisdiction is not effective until the person ordered to comply with it has notice of the order. And, there is no system that gives sites like that notice without you taking action to inform them of an order.
As pointed out in comments, the exact answer depends on the jurisdiction, and on the nature of the crime(s). As a general statement: In many jurisdictions, old criminal records are sealed (=made less available), or even completely deleted after some time. The timespan will depend on many factors, particularly (but not only) on the number and severity of the crimes. Extremely serious crimes may never be sealed/deleted. Sometimes the sealing/deletion may be automatic, sometimes only at the request of the perpetrator, and there may be additional conditions. As an extension of the above, some jurisdictions have special rules for criminal records created while the perpetrator was a minor. Some time spans may be shortened, or minor crimes may be excluded. So, to directly answer the question: Yes, crimes as minor may be kept in your records and influence sentencing as an adult, or they may not - it depends. That is about all you can say in general.
These images were quickly taken down to settle this problem. It doesn't settle the problem, at least under US law, because a former infringer may still owe statutory damages under 17 USC 504 (and I imagine under some analogous Canadian law). Ceasing the infringement does not extinguish the plaintiff's right to those damages, although it may limit the size of the damages. However, the opposition in question continued to try and sue for more, claiming that the information on these properties were taken from them (which is apparently incorrect and lacks proof) Information, in and of itself, is not subject to copyright protection in just about any jurisdiction in the world (see for example 17 USC 102(b)). It has been suggested in the comments of another answer that this may nevertheless be a trade secrets violation, but that would only be the case if the information had been non-public and the site appropriated the information from an unpublished source belonging to the plaintiff. If the plaintiff deliberately caused this information to be published on their own website, then trade secret law certainly does not apply to it. Nevertheless, if the site copied literal text or images from the plaintiff's website, or closely paraphrased it, that is an infringement of copyright. Copyright protects the creative elements of the text, even where the text is serving a primarily utilitarian or functional purpose. but they continue to drag this on in an assumed attempt to try and make the defendant basically spend all their money fighting this off before it gets before a judge. It is unclear what you mean by this. The normal process is for the plaintiff to send the defendant some sort of written demand, the defendant either complies or they don't, and then the plaintiff either files a lawsuit or they don't. If the plaintiff never files a lawsuit, the defendant is under no obligation to continue interacting with the plaintiff, and can simply wash their hands of the matter. Depending on the circumstances, this may or may not be wise, as settling is often more cost-effective than going to court. Ignoring the plaintiff increases the likelihood of a lawsuit being filed. But if there is no lawsuit, then there is nothing to &quot;fight off&quot; in the first place.
The 4th Amendment exclusionary rule applies automatically in cases where law enforcement obtains evidence illegally (subject to exceptions not applicable here). In its 1920 decision in Burdeau vs. McDowell, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the 4th amendment is not applicable to searches by private parties, even when such searches are clearly illegal. This rule doesn't apply, however, if the private citizens was acting as an agent of the government. A more recent case reaffirming and clarifying Burdeau is United States v. Jacobsen 466 U.S. 109 (1984) in which a private courier finds drugs in a package and shows it to police who test the contents (the search was upheld as valid). If the defendant makes that argument, the defendant seeking to exclude the evidence bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the private citizen acted as an agent of the government. U.S. v. Feffer, 831 F.2d 734 (7th Cir. 1987). Another case discussed here notes that: As it relates to computer files, states still differ on how broad the application of the Private Search Doctrine runs, but all seem to agree that if a document or photo has been opened by a private party, an officer can review that file or photo without a warrant. In People v. Wilson, 56 Cal. App. 5th 128 (2020), police opened 4 images they received from NCMEC (the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) who received the images in a CyberTip from Google. Neither NCMEC nor Google had opened these images in this case, but all 4 images had been reviewed by Google in the past and identified previously as child porn by their matching hash values. So here, the officer’s actions—consisting of opening the electronic files submitted to it by NCMEC and viewing the four images attached to Google’s Cybertip—did not exactly replicate Google’s private actions. The Wilson court set out to determine the degree to which the officer’s additional invasion of Wilson’s privacy exceeded the scope of Google’s private search (the search of his emails against known hash values). Before the officer even received Wilson’s photographs, Google had already reviewed identical images in the past; scanned all of Wilson’s electronic communications to search for content with matching hash values; flagged four of Wilson’s images as matching images Google had previously observed; classified the matching images as depictions of prepubescent minors engaged in sexual acts; forwarded all four images to NCMEC as part of a Cybertip report; and terminated Wilson’s account. The Jacobsen case above explained that, “[t]he Fourth Amendment is implicated only if the authorities use information with respect to which the expectation of privacy has not already been frustrated.” Id. at 117. Because Google’s actions already frustrated any expectation of privacy Wilson possessed in the four photographs at issue, no privacy interest remained in the four images, so no expectation of privacy was violated. Wilson at 219. Because the assigned hash values, or “digital fingerprints,” are representative of the contents depicted in the photographs themselves, the government gained no new material information by viewing the images. The agent merely confirmed Google’s report that Wilson uploaded content constituting apparent child pornography. Id. at 220. When someone who is not law enforcement obtains evidence illegally, the court sometimes engages in a non-constitutional discretionary balancing test to determine if the evidence is admissible. Sometimes it comes in, sometimes it doesn't. I'll find a case setting forth the exact test if I have time. The fact that evidence is &quot;irrefutable&quot; (not that there is any such thing) and widely publicly known is absolutely irrelevant. The fact that a juror knows it would be grounds for excusing the juror for cause and for moving the venue of the trial where they can find enough jurors who aren't familiar with the evidence if they can't manage it in the usual venue.
Court filings are, in general, matters of public record. This does not automatically put them into the public domain. This will mean that, absent a special order of the court, anyone will be able to read this filing as pert of the court records. Many courts now make all or parts of their records available on the web. But the copyright holders will possibly retain their rights to authorize the making of further copies, and surely retain the right to authorize the making of derivative works, and their other rights that are part of the copyright bundle, such as the rights of public performance. These rights would not be retained if the work had been placed in the public domain.
The GDPR does not mandate specific features, but that any processing is lawful and transparent etc. So what would be the purpose of storing a revision history? Once that is clear you can work out an appropriate legal basis (e.g. a legitimate interest) and then figure out which data subject rights apply. For example, let's assume that there is a security interest in keeping a revision history, so that (a) mistaken edits can be rolled back, and (b) the user can be notified of possibly unauthorized changes. This would be a legitimate interest primarily of the account holder, secondarily of you as the system operator. Of course, such security requirements have to be proportional, but I'd see that as given when there's a payment method on file. You are required to apply appropriate safety measures and to apply the data minimization principle. E.g. is it necessary to store this revision history for all eternity? No, one or two months will likely be sufficient. Who should have access to this data? If the purpose is to defend against unauthorized access, it could make sense to only give out this data on request, and otherwise only make it available to support and security staff. Now we can discuss how this interfaces with rectification or deletion. That the user is able to rectify their data themselves is very good. However, that doesn't imply a prohibition on keeping a revision history: the revision history indicates what data was stored at what point in time, and is by definition correct. This assumes that you are not using the revision history for any other purposes. When the legal basis is a legitimate interest, a request for erasure has to be preceded by (or implies) an objection (opt-out) to further processing. The objection must weighed against the legitimate interest: the objection can be denied when there are overriding grounds to continue processing. This might be the case for a security purpose: if someone with unauthorized access can just erase their traces, the purpose cannot be achieved. But perhaps the user could opt out when they create their account? Or opt-out later, but with some delay to still achieve the security purpose at the time of opt-out? In any case, erasure is required when the data is no longer necessary for its purpose – this ties back to picking an appropriate retention period, as discussed above. So it's not really possible to provide a general answer, and it really depends on the specific purpose you are trying to achieve.
The first question would be whether those papers are indeed "legit", and we don't do product reviews. Assuming the company didn't mess up and she was legally served, the next question would be whether she responded (in the legal sense) or not. If she failed to respond at all within 21 days (add 9 days if she is out of state), then your next step would be to file default divorce paperwork (presumably that's covered in the service you paid for). If she agreed to the divorce and the courts knows that, then you file some more paperwork and she doesn't have to show up to anything. If she disagreed, there will be an "answer" and possibly a counterpetition. There is an exchange of paperwork w.r.t. assets, a mandatory mediation stage, more paperwork, disclosures etc. and a pre-trial conference, followed by a trial. If you are at this stage, attendance is mandatory. As long as you have proof of service, nobody requested a postponement, and there is some evidence to support your claim, a default judgment can be issued. It's not clear what "divorce proceeding" you are referring to that involves her attendance. However, you can file divorce paperwork yourself or using an online service, and using an online service does not render the paperwork illegitimate. It's not guaranteed that the service did what would be necessary for you to get the outcome you desire, but that's beyond the scope of what we can tell you.
This is a perfectly common question. &quot;What is your full name?&quot; &quot;Do you have any aliases?&quot; &quot;What other names do you go by?&quot; Like any other question, though, it must be relevant, and you should be prepared to explain why it is relevant. If the court allows the question, the defendant must answer.