Freedom of Speech

Data collected in public by wearable technology is, as of 2011’s Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., protected under the First Amendment. The case concerned the rights of pharmaceutical research companies to sell and share personal information to doctors and manufactures, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of data aggregators because preventing the flow of this information would “restrict the speech rights of data miners” [1]. Essentially, this means that the publication and use of data is, in the view of the First Amendment, speech that should be protected. The process of collecting this data- which could include recording videos through Google Glass or companies gathering information about a user through a smart watch- is also protected. According to the 2012 case of ACLU v. Alvarez, “The act of making an audio or audiovisual recording is necessarily included within the First Amendment’s guarantee of speech and press rights as a corollary of the right to disseminate the resulting recording”- meaning that, since the publication of information collected in public is protected by the First Amendment, the recording of such information must also be protected [2]. So, when using wearable technology in public, the data one collects is free speech, and the publication and collection of this data- both by the user and companies who manufacture the wearable- is protected by the First Amendment for the forseeable future.

1. Oyez, "Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc." (www.oyez.org/cases/2010/10-779),10/2/19

2. Digital Media Law Project, "Recording Police Officers and Public Officials" (http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-police-officers-and-public-officials),10/2/19