TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Paul Burch on Feb 29, 2024

For the first time, geolocation, the identification of the location of an individual or an object using technology, will have its day in court. Law.com reports that Mata v. Digital Recognition Network Inc. (DRN), filed in the Superior Court of the State of California on behalf of 23 million California residents, is set to begin jury trial on May 17. The named plaintiff representing the class claims that DRN, a privately owned automatic license plate recognition (ALPR), captured images of his vehicle’s license plate over 70 times and used it to create a timeline of his movements by gaining access to his work and home addresses. That information was then added to a marketing database available for sale, in violation of the California License Plate Recognition Law. The plaintiff demands damages in the amount of $2,500 for each class member, amounting to $57.5 billion in total, along with attorney fees and an injunction forbidding DRN from engaging in “unlawful” practices.