Daniel's Law was signed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to protect the personal information of judges and other law enforcement personnel from being publicly available. It was named after Daniel Anderl, the son of District Court Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the family's home by a disgruntled attorney.
The law makes New Jersey a test case for how to enforce a raft of data privacy measures that have popped up in recent years both federally and in many states, intended to hide the personal identifying information, like addresses and phone numbers, of cops, judges, prosecutors and some other protected groups. But critics see New Jersey’s expanded law as a money grab for lawyers, tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seeking to take companies to court.
The company said its work is not designed to make money. It charges clients an annual subscription fee that covers “a portion of our operational costs” and that 65 percent of the penalty it wins in court goes to the plaintiff. The company said it will donate the majority of what’s left after legal costs to nonprofits that support law enforcement members and their families.
Parikh said in a statement that he held “discussions with different government agencies, impacted individuals and relevant stakeholders in order to ensure the law was working as best it can for those it is meant to protect” and “reported lobbying work for Atlas related to Daniel’s Law out of an abundance of caution given a few brief discussions regarding government process and procedures.”
“It was an easy, inexpensive lift for us. We made it part of our legal protection plan. And we discovered a lot of companies don’t want to comply with the law, including, shockingly, LexisNexis who have some huge state contracts,” said New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association President Pat Colligan, who’s also one of a handful of named plaintiffs in the lawsuits “They’re more interested in their bottom line than in the safety of some prosecutors and cops.
Colligan said that the union paid for the service through its legal fund, though he declined to say how much it cost. He said that his union members had struggled to get their data taken offline before the law, but that compliance has been better thanks to the private right of action.