Sponsored by:
Senator BOB SMITH
District 17 (Middlesex and Somerset)
Senator JENNIFER BECK
District 12 (Mercer and Monmouth)
SYNOPSIS
Requires destruction of records stored on digital copy machines under certain circumstances.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning records stored on certain digital copy machines and supplementing Title 2A of the New Jersey Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. As used in this act:
“Person” means any individual, corporation, company, partnership, firm, association, or other entity, and shall include a public entity.
“Public entity” means the State, and any county, municipality, district, public authority, public agency, and any other political subdivision or public body in the State.
“Records” means any material recorded or preserved by any means.
2. A person shall destroy, or arrange for the destruction of, all records stored on a digital copy machine, which is no longer to be retained by that person, by erasing or otherwise modifying those records to make the records unreadable, undecipherable or nonreconstructable through generally available means.
3. Any person that willfully or knowingly violates the provisions of this act shall be liable to a penalty of not more than $10,000 for the first offense and not more than $20,000 for the second and each subsequent offense to be collected in a summary proceeding pursuant to the "Penalty Enforcement Law of 1999," P.L.1999, c.274 (C.2A:58-10 et seq.). The Attorney General shall enforce the provisions of this act.
4. A person damaged in business or property as a result of a violation of this act may sue the actor therefor in the Superior Court and may recover compensatory and punitive damages and the cost of the suit including a reasonable attorney's fee, costs of investigation and litigation.
5. This act shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
Recent news reports indicate that most digital copy machines use internal hard drives, which store every document that has been scanned, printed, faxed or emailed by the machines. Those electronic records will remain on a hard drive until the hard drive is erased.
This bill requires that a person destroy, or arrange for the destruction of, all records store on a digital copy machine, which is no longer to be retained by that person, by erasing or otherwise modifying those records to make the records unreadable, undecipherable or nonreconstructable through generally available means.
A person that willfully or knowingly violates the provisions of the bill is liable to a penalty of not more than $10,000 for the first offense and not more than $20,000 for the second and each subsequent offense. The provisions of this bill shall be enforced by the Attorney General.
A person damaged in business or property as a result of a violation of this bill may sue the actor therefor in the Superior Court and may recover compensatory and punitive damages and the cost of the suit including a reasonable attorney's fee, costs of investigation and litigation.