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- Referred to codes
- Referred to codes
Full text
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Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the penal law, in relation to criminal impersonation
Purpose
To clarify existing law to include electronic messaging as a form of criminal impersonation
Summary of provisions
This legislation amends 190.25 of the penal law to:
Add language to subdivision 1 clarifying that the person being impersonated might be fictitious, as long as the individual or entity being deceived believes the identity might be real;
Add subdivision 4 to clarify that injury may occur to the individual or entity being impersonated.
Justification
Falsifying the origination of electronic communication is not only used for fraud but also to harass, bully or otherwise confuse the receiver, as was evidenced in the tragic death of the Missouri teen Megan Meier. Megan was harassed and bullied by the mother of a classmate, who pretended to be a fictitious person on MySpace.com. The bullying went so far that Megan committed suicide. Electronic identities are easy to spoof or fabricate, and often the content of the communication does not warrant an acknowledgment response to authenticate the originator. No sender verification is built into electronic mail, (e-mail), and this security weakness has carried over to Short Message Service (Text Messaging). Web sites like Myspace, YouTube and Facebook rely on user provided information that is not verified with an independent authority. Given these shortfalls in origination identity verification, criminal penalties are indicated as a means of deterrence.
Legislative history
S.8649 - 2007/08 Referred to Rules
Fiscal implications
None.
Local fiscal implications
EFFECTIVE DATE : The first of November next succeeding the date on which it shall become law.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.