Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Opinion
Shira Ovide

What I Learned About Tech Privacy From Jury Duty

A harassment case led me to reconsider the balance between digital security and public safety. 

The line to preserve justice is hard to draw.

The line to preserve justice is hard to draw.

Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

I recently served on a jury in a criminal trial, and the experience gave me a different outlook on a contentious technology debate.

The defendant was a man accused of serially harassing his former girlfriend. Some of the evidence against him was a digital trail of thousands of phone calls to the woman at her home and work, and digital nude images of her that he sent to her family members and posted online.