Social Media Monitoring NCAA Student-Athletes May Create Legal Liability in Excess of $100 Million Dollars

In the past 6 months, California, Michigan, Delaware, and New Jersey have enacted laws banning school athletic departments from requesting or requiring their student-athletes verify their social media/digital media usernames/passwords and/or install cyberstalking software onto their personal accounts or devices.  Many other states along with Congress have introduced legislation to ban these practices to protect schools from legal liability and to protect the personal privacy of students.   

Unfortunately, some companies/"social media experts" are approaching NCAA schools and intentionally misleading athletic departments about their experience, their understanding of NCAA compliance, and their knowledge of state and federal law.  Some of these companies may claim that their "social media monitoring" services "respect privacy", or "promote compliance", or they "never ask for passwords" or that their services"facilitate education".  These claims are misleading and may create tremendous legal liability for NCAA athletic programs that engage any of these companies.

The legal liability of engaging a social media monitoring company to digitally track a program's student-athletes or employees may be tens of millions of dollars. Anyone who disagrees with this analysis needs to review the facts about the Penn State Jerry Sandusky scandal.  Emails from 10 plus years ago destroyed the careers of several well respected members of the Penn State administration/faculty and may cost the school more than $100 million dollars in fines/legal fees/judgements/settlements, etc.. 

Digital evidence (emails) was key in the Freeh Report which the NCAA appears to have relied on to levy a $60 million dollar fine against Penn State.  The total cost of this terrible scandal to Penn State may reach $150-$200 million dollars.  Absent the digital evidence, the Freeh Report may have reached a different conclusion, the NCAA may not have had the evidence to support a fine and other sanctions, and plaintiffs may have a hard time proving Penn State knew about Mr. Sandusky's behavior.  

Do schools and athletic department employees want to monitor and archive potential evidence that may be discoverable and utilized against them in lawsuits?  The bottom line is that NCAA athletic departments should not engage services that may harm their interests and put them in a position that may create tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in legal liability.  

To learn more about these issues you may contact me at http://shearlaw.com.

Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved. 

Michigan Bans NCAA Schools From Cyberstalking Student-Athletes

Michigan has joined the growing list of states that have banned schools from requiring their student-athletes to register and/or provide access to their personal email/social media credentials and content.  Michigan joins Delaware, California, and New Jersey in banning NCAA schools from requiring their students to verify their personal digital accounts in order to apply or attend school, keep their scholarships, or participate in intercollegiate athletics.

Michigan's legislation is the most comprehensive in the country because it also bans elementary, middle, and high schools from also requiring their students to turn over their personal digital account information.  In a nutshell, the new law generally bans all schools from requesting their students provide them access to their personal social media/digital media usernames, passwords and/or content.  This policy affirms that the state of Michigan will not allow its schools to act like China who is requiring its citizens to register their personal digital accounts so the government may "monitor" everything their citizens do online.

Michigan's legislation may save Michigan schools tens of millions of dollars per year that may have been utilized to contract with companies that offer cyberstalking services to track the digital activities of students, their families, and friends.  The companies that sell cyberstalking software to schools use terms like, "monitoring", "educating", and "leading" when describing their services, and/or companies.  In addition, if you perform due diligence on the founders of the companies that offer these so called "monitoring" or "educating" services you may notice they have no verifiable professional credentials that demonstrate that any sports (college, amateur, or professional) organization should engage them for social media or education related services.

Some of these companies are also stating that they support social media privacy legislation which if true means they support a ban on their cyberstalking services.  In order for any social media "monitoring" (cyberstalking) software to properly work it needs a student to verify his personal digital credentials.  Absent student verification these services will not work.
   
Any public school that engages a firm to "monitor" (cyberstalk) their students online may in the near future receive a letter from their state's attorney general, the U.S. Department Education, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, or a law firm regarding their practices.  Schools that  "monitor" (cyberstalk) their students online may soon encounter steep fines, lawsuits, or a loss of education funding that may amount to tens of millions of dollars.  

The bottom line is that public schools that engage self-described "social media experts"/"social media education & monitoring services"/"social media protectors of reputation" may create tremendous personal safety and privacy problems for their student-athletes, and massive legal liability issues for their institutions and taxpayers. 

To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.

(Full Disclosure:  I advised Michigan Rep. Arc Nesbitt's office on HB 5523)

Copyright 2012 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.