It’s not a good idea to have incriminating information stored on your PSN account (or at all) as it’s not protected by the Fourth Amendment. A Kansas judge recently ruled that Sony can take the information without a warrant as it wasn’t “unreasonable search and seizure.” This came up during a court case regarding child pornography where Michael Stratton, who went by the PSN handle of Susan_14, messaged multiple users asking if they were interested in child pornography.
After being reported to Sony several times for these infractions, Sony decided to view his PSN data. After doing so, they found several images of child pornography that was downloaded by Stratton and sent to other users. Afterwards, Sony shared the information with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then contacted the FBI. This led to Stratton getting arrested, and his PlayStation 3 seized after a warrant was given. Stratton’s defense argued that their client was protected under the Fourth Amendment, and that Sony couldn’t share his information without having a warrant first. This argument was shot down in court by Judge Daniel D. Crabtree, who said that the PlayStation Network’s terms of service “explicitly nullified its users reasonable expectation of privacy.” As such, Sony is free to view any PSN data, and are completely in the right in going to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in this case.
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