As part of EFF’s transparency mission, we sent public records requests to California law enforcement agencies—including the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office—seeking information about law enforcements’ use of technology sold by two companies: Pen-Link and its subsidiary, Cobwebs Technologies. We went to court to make sure the public gets access to these records.

The Sheriff’s Office gave us 40 pages of redacted documents. But at the request of Pen-Link, the Sheriff’s Office redacted the descriptions and prices of the products, services, and subscriptions offered by Pen-Link and Cobwebs—claiming this information is a trade secret. Pen-Link and Cobwebs Technologies are private companies that sell products and services to law enforcement. The redacted information could tell us whether the Sheriff's Office is buying services from them that include consumers' location data, face recognition technology, or social media monitoring. It could also tell us how much the Sheriff's Office paid for each service. 

Pen-Link filed a lawsuit to permanently block the Sheriff’s Office from making the information public, claiming its prices and descriptions are trade secrets. 

EFF is entering the lawsuit to make sure the records get released to the public. Pen-Link’s lawsuit is known as a “reverse” public records lawsuit because it seeks to block, rather than grant access to public records. It is a rare tool traditionally only used to protect a person’s constitutional right to privacy—not a business’ purported trade secrets. In addition to defending against the “reverse” public records lawsuit, we are asking the court to require the Sheriff’s Office to give us the un-redacted records.

The case is located in the Superior Court of California, County of San Joaquin. The case number is STK-CV-UWM-0016425.