If You Feel Like You’re Being Watched, You Probably Are — Surveillance Can Play a Key Role in Undermining Your Personal Injury Case

As we’ve noted in the past, it’s critically important to take steps to protect your privacy – not only to safeguard your financial assets and to help prevent identity theft, but also so you can preserve and enhance your ability to win in court if you ever find it necessary to file a personal injury lawsuit. The need to avoid various types of surveillance can be true online – especially with what you post on your social media accounts – as well as with what you do in your everyday life … not to mention how you might be perceived whenever you could be observed in public settings.

Here’s why: If you’ve been hurt in a slip-and-fall incident, a car crash you didn’t cause, or some other situation where you were not at fault, a personal injury lawsuit lets you seek compensation for your pain and suffering, as well as for many of the expenses you might have incurred resulting from your injuries. But unscrupulous insurance companies and their claims representatives will often take highly intrusive steps to avoid paying settlements – even going to such extremes as having you investigated for prior incidents, monitoring you when you aren’t looking to see if you’ve truly been hurt, asking friends and neighbors about your behavior, and undertaking extensive background checks to do whatever they can to undermine your case.

We always advise our clients that it’s a given they will be closely watched – both online and in their daily lives – after they become plaintiffs in a personal injury lawsuit or perhaps even when they’ve applied for social security disability insurance benefits. To help you avoid unwanted surveillance if you ever do find yourself in such a circumstance, in this article we’ll discuss how to protect yourself from being unwillingly observed, we’ll cover where you can generally expect your rights to privacy to be honored, and we will also provide some important related advice on privacy protection in general. First let’s talk about the various kinds of surveillance you might encounter.

Types of surveillance personal injury plaintiffs can expect

It’s almost a given that anything you post online will be fair game for insurance companies and their investigative teams seeking to discredit your personal injury claims. Nothing on your social media account is protected information – after all, you’ve posted it there of your own free will for almost anyone to easily see. Even if you think you’ve chosen enhanced privacy settings, you can’t be sure that friends who have access to your postings won’t be approached by undercover operatives seeking information on you and your life. If you’ve approved allowing “friends of friends” to see your social media postings, for example, investigators might even befriend someone you trust and be able to view your accounts through this backdoor approach.

But online tracking isn’t the only way your life can be staked out by investigators. Traffic cameras, police dashcams and body cams, and even smartphone videos taken by eyewitnesses to car accidents or other incidents where injuries take place can be legally obtained through subpoenas obtained by defense teams. Similarly, your own personal text messages, videos, emails, or other documents (except those protected by attorney-client privilege) can be uncovered through legal proceedings that your opponents will be very familiar with using.

Are you being watched? You bet you are!

Your right to avoid video and audio surveillance in the privacy of your home – and even in some circumstances while away from home – is protected by a variety of Michigan laws. Federal laws also safeguard citizens, for example by requiring law enforcement authorities to obtain warrants before recording conversations using electronic means. However, private and government-owned security cameras – which are just about everywhere these days – are said by one study to capture video of the average American citizen around 75 times every day! Another report claims the number is actually closer to 250 times weekly, with many of those recordings happening while you’re driving. Regardless of the actual number, though, it means that whenever you’re outside your home – whether you’re innocently walking the dog, shopping at the local grocery store, dropping off the kids to school, or spending time at your job – you can be virtually certain you’re being recorded. It’s all perfectly legal, and the recordings made by government-owned cameras can be obtained without much difficulty by anyone who follows Michigan State Police information request procedures.

Furthermore, as reporters are taught in journalism school, whenever you’re in a public place (such as visiting a park, driving to work, swimming on the sunny shores of Lake Michigan, or attending a public gathering), you have no reasonable expectation of privacy and can be legally photographed by anyone with a handy camera (or, of course, a cell phone). Likewise, as an American citizen, you also have the First Amendment right to take photos in any public place, as the ACLU chapter in Washington, DC, advises. However, there are gray areas. For instance, it would be up to a court to decide if you have a right to privacy in such semi-public places as restaurants, which are privately owned and where you might not believe you can be recorded without your permission. And, of course, in your bathroom or bedroom, you’re generally assured of privacy unless you’re subject to a legally-obtained warrant … or your curious toddler walked in on you!

Best practices to protect your privacy

It probably goes without saying at this point that it’s always wise to assume you’re on camera just about anywhere you go nowadays. So be cautious in how you behave when you’re out and about in public. The same thing applies when you’re using the internet. There are, of course, ways to avoid being unwillingly observed or monitored online. For example, security experts advise their clients to avoid sharing data from mapping apps or posting their location on social media while on vacation to discourage thieves or nosy neighbors. Similarly, you can protect yourself from online surveillance by using tools like VPNs (virtual private networks) and other privacy protectors to block “Big Brother” from seeing your search history. You can also manually turn off the microphone on smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa to avoid being heard during sensitive conversations. But be aware that nothing is perfect, and you can’t avoid legally mandated search warrants or subpoenas – especially if you have something to hide from law enforcement.

If you think your privacy has been compromised, call us

There are serious penalties for breaking the law when it comes to privacy protection in Michigan. Indeed, as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press notes, in our fair state “It is a felony to install or use a device to observe, photograph, record sounds or images, or eavesdrop on a person in a private place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from surveillance or intrusion without the person’s consent.” But that doesn’t mean you should let down your guard and not be conscious of your behavior in public places. If, for example, you’re a plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit, and are seeking compensation for severe injuries that have made it painful for you to perform the everyday functions of daily life, it would be very unwise to go skydiving, ice skating, or water skiing! As your attorneys of record, we will be happy to advise you in person on the best ways to safeguard your personal privacy to maximize the chances of winning your case. To get started, just call 855-MIKE-WINS (855-645-3946) or contact us right here.

Content checked by Mike Morse, personal injury attorney with Mike Morse Injury Law Firm. Mike Morse is the founder of Mike Morse Law Firm, the largest personal injury law firm in Michigan. Since being founded in 1995, Mike Morse Law Firm has grown to over 200 employees, served 40,000 clients, and collected more than $1.5 billion for victims of auto, truck and motorcycle accidents. The main office is in Southfield, MI but you can also find us in Detroit, Sterling Heights and many other locations.