[Infowarrior] - Privacy: E-Z Pass Data Used To Catch Cheaters

[Richard Forno]

Not So Fast: E-Z Pass Data Used To Catch Cheaters
Divorce Lawyers Find Toll Records, Prove Spouses Lied About Whereabouts

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_222140553.html

(CBS/AP) TRENTON, N.J. There's some potentially troubling and telling news
for all you motorists out there who may be taking the Turnpike for the worst
crime in marriage: cheating on your significant other.

E-ZPass and other electronic toll collection systems are emerging as a
powerful means of proving infidelity. That's because when your spouse
doesn't know where you've been, E-ZPass does.

"E-ZPass is an E-ZPass to go directly to divorce court, because it's an easy
way to show you took the off-ramp to adultery," said Jacalyn Barnett, a New
York divorce lawyer who has used E-ZPass records a few times.

Lynne Gold-Bikin, a Pennsylvania divorce lawyer, said E-ZPass helped prove a
client's husband was being unfaithful: "He claimed he was in a business
meeting in Pennsylvania. And I had records to show he went to New Jersey
that night."

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Generally mounted inside a vehicle's windshield behind the rearview mirror,
E-ZPass devices communicate with antennas at toll plazas, automatically
deducting money from the motorist's prepaid account.

Of the 12 states in the Northeast and Midwest that are part of the E-ZPass
system, agencies in seven states provide electronic toll information in
response to court orders in criminal and civil cases, including divorces,
according to an Associated Press survey.

In four of the 12 states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, highway
authorities release E-ZPass records only in criminal cases. West Virginia
parkways authority has no policy. (Divorce attorneys in some cases can still
obtain toll records from the other spouse rather than a highway agency.)

The Illinois Tollway, which hands over toll records, received more than 30
such subpoenas the first half of this year, with about half coming from
civil cases, including divorces, according to Joelle McGinnis, an agency
spokeswoman.

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority said it turns down about 30 subpoenas in
civil cases every year, about half of them divorces.

Electronic toll records have also proved useful in criminal cases.

They played a role in the murder case against Melanie McGuire, a New Jersey
nurse convicted in April of killing her husband and tossing his cut-up
remains into the Chesapeake Bay in three matching suitcases in 2004.
Prosecutors used toll records to reconstruct her movements.

Davy Levy, a Chicago divorce lawyer for more than 30 years, said toll
records from I-Pass (part of the E-ZPass system) are useful in catching a
spouse in a lie.

"You bring up the I-Pass records and it destroys credibility," said Levy,
who has used such records two or three times for such purposes.

The E-ZPass network covers about half the East Coast and part of the
Midwest, with about 2 billion charges per year. That can mean a lot of
records. One of the busiest toll plazas in New Jersey, the Garden State
Parkway's southbound Raritan plaza, gets about 90,000 E-ZPass hits per day.

Some worry that using those records for other purposes is a violation of
drivers' privacy.

"When you're marketed for this new convenience, you may not realize there
are these types of costs," said Nicole Ozer of the American Civil Liberties
Union of Northern California.

Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia turned Libertarian
and privacy rights advocate, said people who want to protect their privacy
shouldn't use electronic toll systems.

"People are foolish to buy into these systems without thinking, just because
they want to save 20 seconds of time going through a toll booth," he said.