Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things

People use wearable technologies, smart home devices, and personal medical devices daily. These internet of things (IoT) devices collect and share information without human intervention. What are the public’s expectations of privacy in a world dependent on IoT, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence?

Illinois v. Caballes: Some Disturbing Questions

Data Privacy And The Vanishing Fourth Amendment

With protections in place, body cameras have the potential to better document encounters between police officers and citizens while mitigating competing concerns about their potential for misuse or abuse.

In the post-Dobbs landscape, states are criminalizing reproductive health in a variety of ways. Law enforcement will likely reach for digital surveillance tools in these cases and defenders will need to know how to counter that evidence. NACDL's Criminalization of Reproductive Health Taskforce and 4th Amendment Center researched categories of pregnancy criminalization, connected them to types of surveillance that law enforcement might use, and connected those to resources. Some tools show up several times on this page, which speaks to the omnipresence of these types of surveillance. 

Law enforcement has increasingly turned to Google to identify criminal suspects by using digital dragnets that search millions or billions of people at once.

22^nd Annual State Criminal Justice Network Conference
August 16-17, 2023 | Held Virtually

Subject matter experts and litigators from NACDL’s Fourth Amendment Center explain and discuss some of the important digital technology issues that defense counsel will very likely encounter in these cases. The faculty focus on reverse searches, facial recognition, and device searches.

Professor Wendy Bach and Dr. Mishka Terplan provide information essential for lawyers defending pregnancy-related prosecutions as well as others in the field. They discuss reproductive medicine, use of expert witnesses, and healthcare privacy and HIPAA issues in these cases.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation as Amici Curiae in Support of Defendant’s Petition for Review

Nearly every case involves a cell phone or an online account. Laws on device and account searches are continuing to evolve, as courts reconsider old doctrines that do not fit with the realities of the digital age. Below, find sample motions on suppressing emails, passcodes, and other electronically stored information.

Amicus Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Below are NACDL's comments on Executive Order 14074 on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety. The policing technologies at issue in the Executive Order create serious harms for individual criminal defendants, their lawyers, and the criminal legal system more broadly. In this comment, NACDL aims to highlight the serious dangers that these technologies pose and propose recommendations for mitigating those dangers.

With an increasing number of police departments across the country turning to unregulated, untested, and flawed facial recognition technology to identify suspects, it is vital defenders understand the technology, its limitations, and how to challenge its use in their cases.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation as Amici Curiae in Support of Defendant’s Petition for Review

Predictive policing encompasses the surveillance technologies, tools, and methods employed to visualize crime, target “at-risk” individuals and groups, map physical locations, track digital communications, and collect data on individuals and communities.