Liberty Safe Discloses Master Code
| Liberty Safe Discloses Master Code | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | Liberty Safe Discloses Master Code |
| Location | Utah, United States |
| Date | 8/30/2023 |
| Solove Harm | Insecurity, Disclosure, Increased Accessibility |
| Information | Ownership, Criminal |
| Threat Actors | Federal Bureau of Investigation, Liberty Safe |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Nathan Earl Hughes, potentially other customers in the future |
| High Risk Groups | Criminal, Suspect, Political Activists, Political Activist, People, Ethnic Minority, Consumers |
| Tangible Harms | Deportation, Embarrassment, Employment, Threats, Suicide, Ostracism, Loss of Trust, Incarceration, Housing, Financial Cost, Lost Opportunity, Inconvenience, Some consequences, Death, Bodily Injury, Anxiety |
Liberty Safe violates a man's privacy and discloses information that could hurt his life and reputation.
Description
Nathan Earl Hughes was a political activist that took part in the events that took place on January 6th 2021 in Washington D.C. Due to this fact and potentially others, he was wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) for felony and misdemeanor charges. Naturally as any investigative agency would want, the FBI wanted to dig through every aspect of this suspect's life to find any bit of evidence they could find. This would include the suspect's gun safe, where anything could potentially be stored. In order to gain access to the safe the easiest way a code would need to be entered, and one way to get this code would be to reach out to the safe manufacturer. So they did just that and asked Liberty Safe for the code to the safe in question. Liberty Safe had no legally binding obligation to hand over such information, yet did so anyway. This is a clear violation of Mr. Hughes's privacy as the master code to his safe has been disclosed, and there is increased accessibility to the contents of his safe meaning there is also insecurity introduced. The company has since received backlash and revised its policies regarding master codes and cooperation with law enforcement, hopefully stopping another event like this from happening again.
Laws and Regulations
Sources
[https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/business/liberty-safe-codes.html%0Ahttps://www.newsweek.com/liberty-safe-facing-investigation-customer-code-sharing-backlash-1826604%0Ahttps://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/gun-safe-company-backlash-providing-fbi-code-customers-safe%0Ahttps://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2023/09/10/how-company-that-makes-gun-safes/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/business/liberty-safe-codes.html https://www.newsweek.com/liberty-safe-facing-investigation-customer-code-sharing-backlash-1826604 https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/gun-safe-company-backlash-providing-fbi-code-customers-safe https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2023/09/10/how-company-that-makes-gun-safes/]