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At least 11 real estate-related companies — including CoStar, Zillow, RE/MAX, CoreLogic, Attom, Black Knight and Remine — are among 118 “data brokers” alleged to have violated a law that prohibits the disclosure of home addresses and unpublished home phone numbers for judges, law enforcement officers, prosecutors and their families.
The law, known as Daniel’s Law, is named after Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of a federal judge, who in July 2020 was shot dead by a gunman who had political and personal grievances against the judge and who was able to find the judge’s home address through online companies that collect personal data, known as “data brokers,” according to the complaints. There are both federal and state versions of Daniel’s Law; the lawsuits were filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey.
In the past week, starting Feb. 6, Atlas Data Privacy Corporation, a company that said it is suing on behalf of about 19,496 individuals covered under Daniel’s Law, filed 118 lawsuits against a gamut of companies, including CoStar, Zillow, RE/MAX, First American Financial, CoreLogic, Attom, Black Knight, Remine, PropertyRadar, Yardi and NJ Property Records. The complaints are nearly identical to each other.
“This complaint seeks to protect those important rights, against companies brokering data and choosing profit and personal gain over a critical public interest and the unequivocal mandate of the law,” the complaints read. (All complaints for the named companies are linked to above.)
“Companies in the business of disclosing this protected information have avoided accountability for far too long, proffering such information, including home addresses and unpublished home telephone numbers, without sufficient regard for the risks and consequences imposed upon individuals who serve critical judicial and law enforcement roles.”
According to the complaints, Atlas provides an online platform, including an email service named AtlasMail, to law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges and other people covered by Daniel’s Law, including members of the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Benevolent Association, New Jersey PBA Local 105 and the New Jersey State Troopers Fraternal Association.
The complaints allege the law enforcement personnel used Atlas to send the defendants a written notice requesting they cease disclosing their protected information on one or more of the defendants’ websites, but the defendants did not comply. The court can award $1,000 in actual damages for each violation of Daniel’s Law as well as punitive damages if it is proved the violation was willful or reckless, along with attorney’s fees and litigation costs.
“We take the privacy of our customers seriously to create a safe and transparent online experience for everyone who comes to Zillow,” Zillow spokesperson Will Lemke told Inman.
“Data displayed on our site comes from local and state records that make property information, like tax and sales history, available to the public. Our home listing pages do not contain or display the personal information of any homeowner, tenant or any other occupants.
“We firmly believe that our services and technology are in full compliance with local, state and federal laws.”
In a statement, PropertyRadar founder Sean O’Toole told Inman, “PropertyRadar has been in business since 2006, and during this time, it has provided valuable solutions to real estate professionals and home service businesses throughout the country.”
“PropertyRadar believes the lawsuit filed against it is devoid of merit, and it intends to vigorously defend itself in Court,” O’Toole added.
CoStar, RE/MAX and Attom declined to comment for this story. First American Financial, CoreLogic, Black Knight, Remine, Yardi and NJ Property Records did not respond to requests for comment.
In addition to Atlas, the complaints name several law enforcement officers as plaintiffs, including “Jane Doe-1,” a police officer who, as part of an investigation in which digital devices were seized, found that a leader of a criminal organization possessed images of her home, including photos of her child’s bedroom and playroom windows at night, and that the leader had hired a private investigator who used data broker websites to obtain the officer’s home address and track her movements.
Other plaintiffs include spouses who are both police officers who received “dozens of threatening phone calls and text messages” after someone posted links to data broker websites that revealed their home address and unpublished phone numbers and a police detective who joined a federal task force targeting the Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13) gang in New Jersey and subsequently received “multiple credible death threats from MS-13 members,” some of whom attempted to burn down her home with her inside but mistakenly set fire to an adjacent building instead, according to the complaints.
“We are working to enforce the privacy rights of more than 20,000 members of New Jersey’s law enforcement community who, along with their families, we allege are being put in danger due to data brokers not following Daniel’s Law,” a spokesperson for Atlas Data Privacy Corp. told Inman.
“Our goal is to ensure these companies comply with the law and change their behavior going forward. What these officers, troopers and prosecutors hope for is what anyone in their position would want for themselves and their families — to feel safe and protected.”
Atlas Data Privacy Corp. did not respond to questions asking why the company had not filed any suits before and why it was filing so many now all at once.
