Stephanie's law

Stephanie’s law was signed into law by New York Governor George E. Pataki on June 23, 2003, and has been in effect since August 4, 2003. This New York law joined several other states’ laws that criminally prohibit the secret surveillance of individuals in their homes, private residencies, and other places that individuals would expect privacy. Named after Long Island resident Stephanie Fuller, whose landlord,  Shultz, had secretly videotaped her bedroom in her rented apart-ment, Stephanie’s law updated state and local “Peeping Tom” and privacy statutes in New York. Stephanie’s law provided stricter punishment for video voyeurism or any form of secret surveillance; however, the law also set limited boundaries on where and when individuals’ rights to privacy will be protected. Thus, while individuals’ right to privacy is protected from secret surveillance in their private homes and in some public settings, Stephanie’s law does not protect violations of privacy in public space.
In response to many national incidents of video voyeurism, New York enacted Stephanie’s law in order to expand protections of privacy to include incidents where voyeurs used new types of technology. Fuller discovered she was being secretly videotaped by landlord Schultz when her boyfriend noticed strange wires coming out of the smoke alarm in her bedroom. Police later found videotapes in Shultz’s apartment, and Fuller was worried that he was selling on the Internet. Because Schultz used a video camera that was not filming Fuller through a window, he could not be charged with as violating New York’s “Peeping Tom” laws. Instead, Mr. Schultz was charged with trespassing; he thus received a fine of $1500 and was sentenced to three years probation and 280 hours of community service. A previous anti-voyeuristic statute in New York, Article 26 of the General Business law, included a $300 fine and 15 days of imprisonment for video voyeur-ism. However it could not be used to prosecute Shultz as the law did not prohibit secret surveillance in private residences. Fuller also discovered similar cases where perpetrators faced other charges for video voyeurism. Other landlords had been found taping their residents, and a kindergarten teacher was charged with endangerment of a minor after filming five girls putting on their swimsuits. Arguing that these crimes were similar to sexual assault, Fuller began a state-wide campaign. Fuller, joined by other previous victims, lobbied the state legislature for two years to redefine the laws to take into account new types of surveillance technology and classify these types of privacy invasions as sexual assaults.
Stephanie’s law amends New York penal code to redefine unlawful surveillance as a Class E felony, punishable by up to four years imprisonment for first offenders, and up to seven years for repeat offences (§70.00[2][e] New York Penal Code, §250.5 New York Penal Code). Under the law, a video voyeur can face two sepa-rate charges of criminal unlawful surveillance and dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image regardless of the type of camera or device used in the crime. The law defines unlawful surveillance as the use or instillation of a recording or imaging device to view, broadcast, or record a person dressing and undressing, or his or her sexual or private parts for the purpose of entertainment of profit without the individual’s permission and where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy (§250 New York Penal Law). Thus, under this new law, Shultz could have been prosecuted for installing the video camera in Fuller’s bedroom as well as for selling any of his tapes over the Internet. In addition, the law requires offenders to register with the state sex offender registry. Therefore under Stephanie’s law, offenders who violate victims’ privacy in turn lose their right to privacy.
Stephanie’s law joins several other state laws that restrict video voyeurism including laws in the state of Washington, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Virginia, California, and Illinois. Like these states’ anti-voyeurism laws, Stephanie’s law focuses its protection of privacy on the physical location where the incident occurred rather than on the individual privacy invasion committed. Although Stephanie’s law provides tougher sentences on voyeurism than past state laws, many legal critics argue that the law will do little to protect individuals in public spaces. The law prevents individuals from using electronic devices under an individual’s clothing, known as “upskirting”; how-ever, the law only prohibits such acts in places where an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Thus under Stephanie’s law, individual privacy is protected in a private place such as a “bedroom, changing room, fitting room, restroom, toilets, bathroom, washroom, shower, and any room assigned to guests or patrons in a motel, hotel, or inn” (§250.50 New York Penal Code). The law, however, does not protect individual privacy in public spaces such as malls, restaurants, bus stops, or other crowded areas where upskirting is likely to take place. For example, in the state of Washington, with a similar anti-voyeurism law, two men, Mr. Glas and Mr. Wells, who were convicted of videotaping and upskirting women in a local mall, were later acquitted by the state court because “public places could not logically constitute locations where a person could reasonably expect to be safe from casual or hostile intrusion of surveillance” (State vs. Glas, Wash. 2d 410, 2002).
California approved additional amendments when previous anti-voyeurism laws did not protect individuals from several incidents of video voyeurism, including upskirtings in public stores and malls. Following an incident where a man used a gym bag to upskirt several dozen women in crowded stores, the California legislature amended existing laws to focus on the individual violation acts rather than the location. Thus under §647[k][1] of California Penal Code, it is illegal to use hidden cameras to photograph or record another identifiable person under or through that person’s clothing for sexual gratification without consent or knowledge of the person.
Although the California code also stipulâtes that the act should occur under cir-cumstances where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, the California law also protects people in public spaces because it includes acts that invade under and through clothing. The expectation is that people are using clothing to protect their privacy, and that using cameras over or through the clothing is in itself an invasion regardless of whether it occurs in public or private spaces.
Unfortunately, video voyeurs have a loophole within the California law as well. In order to be found guilty, the state must prove that the video voyeur took the images for sexual gratification or arousal, and the victim must be identifiable. These two loopholes are problematic as they exclude a majority of invasion of pri-vacy acts. Since most upskirting does not include the victim’s face, California law exempts most types of these invasions. In addition, including a sexual gratification clause excludes secret taping used for entertainment or commercial website use. Thus, Stephanie’s law provides more protection than its Californian counterpart since the New York law does not require the victim to be identifiable and recognizes that video voyeurism may be for profit.
Victims of upskirting and secret surveillance find the most protection in Illinois. The Illinois anti-voyeurism law prohibits using concealed video and photographic equipment through or under the clothes worn by another person for the purpose of viewing the body or undergarments without the person’s consent (section 5/26-4 Illinois Criminal Code).
Although limited, Stephanie’s law provides stricter protections against invasions of privacy with video cameras and other recording devices. Supporters of Stephanie’s law, including Fuller herself, argue that the law updates the protection of privacy to include new types of surveillance and treats offenders appropriately. Moreover, Stephanie’s law expands privacy protection into areas where privacy was always assumed to be protected, including private residences and changing rooms. Several state legislators who supported the law argued that it not only updated laws that had provided loopholes to high-tech video voyeurs but also pro-vided a necessary deterrent through the implementation of prison time. Critics of the statue, however, claimed that the law is too strict on offenders rather than too lax in its definitions of privacy. If convicted under Stephanie’s law, individuals may face between two to seven years imprisonment and must register with the state’s sex offender registry when released. Some argue that this punishment is too severe for a nonphysical assault, especially when victims cannot be identified as in many incidents of upskirting. Instead, critics argue that stricter trespassing laws and or counseling is a more appropriate way of dealing with video voyeurs than prison time.