New Jersey officials who use taxpayer funded cell phones cannot keep information on the destination of outgoing calls secret, a state appellate court ruled earlier this week.In Livecchia v. Borough of Mount Arlington, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, ruled on Wednesday that the public interest in information on the city and state of the location of cell phone calls outweighed the privacy interests of state officials. It also rejected an effort by the state to absolutely bar such information from becoming public.
The court said “there is no absolute bar to the release of the destination location of telephone calls placed by public employees using publicly funded cell phones and the same would not impinge upon individual privacy interests.”
The case began when resident Gayle Ann Livecchia submitted a public records request for two months’ worth of cell phone records documenting the use of publicly funded phones by all employees in the borough.
Livecchia wanted to use the records to see whether employees exceeded limits placed on the taxpayer-funded phones and also whether individuals were using the phones for personal reasons without reimbursing the borough, according to the court. (more) (ruling)
